Ryan Howard and opposite field homers

The Phillies posted a great stat last night regarding Ryan Howard's home runs, pointing out that he ranks among the league leaders in opposite field ding-dongs. Tom Goodman of Swing and a Miss sent along this stat, compiled from Stats.Inc and listed on CNNSI. Incredibly, Howard has yet to jerk one to right field, and only two to right-center.
Date	Opp	HRs	Pitcher	Inn	Distance
May 17	STL	1	Jeff Suppan	2	370 ft. to L
Jul. 3	ATL	2	Jorge Sosa	4	345 ft. to L
Jul. 10	WAS	3	Gary Majewski	8	410 ft. to C
Jul. 14	FLA	4	A.J. Burnett	2	392 ft. to LC
Jul. 19	LAD	5	Yhency Brazoban	10	400 ft. to LC
Jul. 22	SD	6	Tim Stauffer	2	399 ft. to LC
Aug. 9	@LAD	7	Steve Schmoll	8	441 ft. to RC
Aug. 10	@LAD	8	Yhency Brazoban	9	450 ft. to RC
Aug. 23	@SF	9	Brett Tomko	3	360 ft. to L
Aug. 28	@ARI	10	Claudio Vargas	2	407 ft. to C
Aug. 31	@NYM	11	Pedro Martinez	4	365 ft. to L
Sep. 1	@NYM	12	Braden Looper	9	430 ft. to C
Sep. 3	@WAS	13	Chad Cordero	9	360 ft. to L
Sep. 6	HOU	14	Roy Oswalt	5	370 ft. to LC

Comments

[Tom G]

I was actually tinkering with a post about just this very fact. It occurred to me that his homeruns rarely look like the type that are pulled rockets. They always look like high deep flies that somehow make their way out. Plus, he is one of the few guys I can recall hitting homers to dead center at CBP.

[Jeremy]

You can view a spray chart of Ryan Howard's hits on mlb.com. It's interesting to see where he hits each type of ball. Basically every home run and fly out is to the left side of the field while every double and single is to the right. This seems to indiciate to me that when he hits the ball to the oppositte field he gets under it while when he pulls it he hits it harder. Unfortunately this is only for CBP and there's no global type option.

[Tom Goodman]

TG: I don't know if he is one of the "few guys", but Lance Berkman sent one there last night.

[gr]

great stat. i was thinking about this last night, too.

[heh]

Funny how Berkman hit one to dead center, and Howard pulled one to right-center last night. But I don't want to talk about last night...