Phillies Stat Notes: Best Offense in the NL, Upcoming Milestones

Two topics for this one:

1) Since Chase Utley returned, the Phillies have been the highest-scoring team in the NL, by a good margin.
2) Upcoming milestones include Ryan Madson tying Tug McGraw for the Phillies' record for most career relief appearances.


Best Offense in the NL

After the May 22nd games, the Phillies had averaged 3.83 runs per game, for 12th in the NL:

Through May 22 (46 games)

  

In the 85 games since Utley's return, the Phillies have been well ahead of the league's other high-scoring offenses.

Combined since May 23 (85 games):

More detail after the jump.

 

Chase Utley returned on May 23rd, and from that point until July 29th, the Phils' offense improved to 2nd in the NL:

May 23-July 29 (59 games)
  

The Hunter Pence trade occurred on July 29th, and Pence joined the team on July 30th.  Since then, the Phils have scored far more than any other team in the league:

July 30-August 30 (26 games)
 

OVERALL (131 games):

If they average 5.18 for the rest of the season they will finish at 4.67 per game, just ahead of where the current league leader sits.

I haven't had time to do this but it would be interesting to see the last time a team has led its league in both Runs Scored and Runs Allowed. 

Wins in the last 162 Games

As reported previously, the team record for most wins out of any consecutive 162 regular season games had been 105, which the Phillies had accomplished 3 times in overlapping 162-game periods across the 1976-78 seasons.

They have broken that record several times this year, and it currently stands at 110, which they set for the period from August 27, 2010 to August 23, 2011 (last 35 games of 2010, first 127 of 2011), when they were 110-52.

At the moment they are 109-53 in their last 162.

Milestones

Ryan Madson: his next relief appearance will tie him with Tug McGraw for most in Phillies' history, at 460.

Raul Ibanez: his next HR will be the 250th of his career.

Ryan Howard: played his 1,000th game last Wednesday, August 24th.  At that point he had 279 career home runs, breaking Ralph Kiner's record of 277 for most homers in the first 1,000 games. 

As for the similar record for fewest games to 300 home runs, it's 1,087 (also by Kiner), so Howard will need 18 in his next 83 games to beat it.  It's going to be close.

Charlie Manuel: tonight's game is his 1,104th with the Phillies, tying him with Danny Ozark for 3rd in Phils' history.  As mentioned previously, win #92 will tie him for 2nd with Harry Wright (636), and #102 will tie him with Gene Mauch as the Phillies' winningest manager, with 646.

Phillies career leaders can be found here: hitting, and pitching.