There is little doubt that the pitch Dan Haren tried to muscle past Ryan Howard in the fifth inning last night has worked for him many times before this year.
Ahead in the count, with the batter probably thinking he would get a breaking pitch, something nasty, Haren went to a tailing fastball that moved away from Howard and very nearly made it to the safety of catcher Chris Snyder's glove.
"That ball traveled. It got deep on him. He didn't catch it out in front by any means," manager Charlie Manuel would say later, as he took his own lefthanded stance and re-created the moment.
Manuel stayed over the imaginary ball, waited a beat, then threw his hands at it, sending it over the opposite-field wall just as Howard had done an hour before.
"That's when he goes the other way," Manuel said. "He's strong."
Haren is pretty strong himself. He's a legitimate Cy Young Award candidate in the National League, and that fastball has gotten him out of trouble all season. Last night, however, with the Phillies holding a 2-1 lead, and two runners on for Howard, that fastball merely got the Arizona Diamondbacks out of the game.
"That kind of set the pace the rest of the way," said Jayson Werth, who followed Howard's homer with a home run of his own and added a solo shot in the seventh inning.
Overall, the Phillies had four home runs and seven runs batted in from the 3-4-5 slots in the batting order when you add in Chase Utley's two-run home run that began the barrage in the third inning.
It made the evening somewhat easier for starter Cliff Lee, although Lee doesn't look as if he needs much help. Lee gave up just one unearned run in the 8-1 win, carried a no-hitter into the sixth, and finished with a complete-game two-hitter.
If the Phillies are going to win the division and then have some success in the postseason, they need Lee to pitch like that, and it wouldn't hurt if the other starters did, too. But they also need the middle of the batting order to produce as it did last night, and that would start with Howard getting off on one of those hot streaks that can sear through the late summer.
This season, Howard had a decent May, with 10 home runs and a .607 slugging percentage, but he went relatively unnoticed through June and July before finally catching a little spark in the last week or so. He has hit five home runs in the last six games, and his slugging percentage is up to .590 for August.
Is this a hot streak on the horizon or another blip that will be swallowed by a string of strikeouts? Howard also had two strikeouts last night, but it was that late swing on the 1-and-2 fastball that Manuel chose to remember.
"He's coming," Manuel said. "He's swinging the bat better. When he's been striking out, it's because he's been chasing fastballs up a little bit. If he just brings the ball down a little bit, he'll be fine."
And so will the Phillies. Otherwise, regardless of the pitching, they are susceptible to the offensive slumps that beset them when the home runs aren't coming.
Howard and the rest of the middle of the order have to pick up some of the slack left by the dip in power production from Raul Ibanez, who had 22 home runs and 59 runs batted in before going on the disabled list and has five home runs and 19 RBIs since returning, including one homer and three RBIs in August.
"We can manufacture runs when we're really playing good; we don't have to hit home runs to score, but at the same time, we were built to hit home runs," Manuel said. "We got power."
That power, being there at the times when the Phillies will really need it, will decide how the season turns out as much as anything else. It is a team that spins some of baseball's truisms around. Their hitting can prop up so-so pitching, even though on nights like last night it was simply overkill.
"We've got a potent offense," Lee said. "You get a four- or five-run lead in the [middle] innings and that's pretty good. We've got home-run threats all over the place."
No threat is bigger - literally or figuratively - than Howard when he gets its going in the hot, boggy air of late season. Last night, as he took Haren's fastball over the wall in left, it was a reminder of those streaks he has produced.
The Phillies need that, almost as much as they need anything from their roster. Whether they get it, whether the balls continue to fly into the night, will mean everything to them.
He's coming, the manager said after imitating the swing, and there will be nothing imaginary about the baseballs Howard will be hitting.
Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com.
Read his blog at http://philly.com/postpatterns.
Photos: Shane Victorino 
