A Big Sunday For Halladay & Howard

Ryan Howard belted his 300th career home run on Sunday afternoon, becoming the 22nd player in league history to get to 300. He's the second player to reach 300 during this season, with a few more possibly still to come in 2012. Rowdy's Lance Berkman pelted No. 300 earlier this year and sitting on the cusp of 300, going into Wednesday's matchups, are Hoboken's David Ortiz at 298 and Bridgewater's Carlos Beltran at 297.

Howard has hit 14 home runs in 54 games (after Tuesday's win) since coming to Vancouver from Philly in exchange for a first-round pick. Used mainly as a DH, with some time at 1B, Howard has a line of .250/.311/.515 during his time in Vancouver after hitting just 12 home runs in 77 games with Philly, including .226/.315/.412.

In game one of Sunday's doubleheader, Howard launched a solo home run after teammate John Mayberry's solo home run, chasing Marietta starter David Price in the fourth inning for this 300th. The Fisters ultimately fell, 9-7, to the Mighty Men.

Roy Halladay pitched a complete game shutout Sunday afternoon, breaking a tie with Kevin Brown for fourth place all-time in complete games. The righthander now has 71 complete games, trailing only future Hall of Famers Roger Clemens (84), Curt Schilling (87) and Greg Maddux (104). It also was his 22nd career shutout, putting him within two of Brown for second and within 10 of Maddux, the all-time leader with 32 shutouts.

Halladay went the distance in Hoboken's 11-0 thrashing of Sardine City on Sunday, limiting the Straphangers to four hits while striking out five and walking two. It was his first shutout and second complete as a Cutter, improving to 5-4 in 11 starts with a 4.62 ERA since being shipped from Philly, along with a 6th rounder, in exchange for Giancarlo Stanton. Combined, Halladay is now 14-8 with a 3.24 ERA, including seven complete games (second only to James Shields of Newark with nine) and three shutouts.

Home run No. 300 for Berkman

Lance Berkman became the 21st player in DMBL history to reach 300 career home runs, and doing so against the franchise he broke in with more than a decade ago. Just after teammate Adam Jones was picked off first base by rookie Michael Pineda in the second inning, The Big Puma launched a homer deep down the right-field line.

Next up on the home run list is Rafael Palmeiro at 20th, with 330 home runs, so Berkman has an outside chance at catching him if he can reach 38 round-trippers in 2012.

Berkman had been a stalwart in the Arkansas offense ever since being a 1st round pick (13th overall) in the 2001 draft. He hit no fewer than 24 home runs (4x) in 9 of 10 seasons with the Golden Falcons, including a career-high 39 in 2007, and never hit lower than .800 OPS (if you round up his .799 OPS in 2008).

Released by Arkansas at age 34, Fat Elvis was selected in the 13th round of the 2011 draft by Sardine City but eventually released and ended up scuffling most of last season with Carolina (now Rowdy), where he's manning right field this year.

"Hear that?  Yeah, that was No. 300."

Behind Berkman on the all-time home run list is a real horse race, with four active players closely jockeying all season. Currently, David Ortiz of Hoboken is ahead at 283 homers (8 on the year), followed by a tie between Philly's Ryan Howard (6) and Bridgewater's Carlos Beltran (5) with 281, and Vancouver's Todd Helton at 279 (3).

Berkman makes a move

Longtime Golden Falcon Lance Berkman went deep in an 11-2 pummeling by Arkansas on Thursday. The third-inning homer off Bridgewater's Josh Beckett was his 22nd of the year and broke up a logjam on the DMBL's all-time home run list.

Entering the game, Berkman was tied with fellow first basemen Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff for 22nd place in DMBL history with 271 homers. Berkman is chasing Bridgewater's Todd Helton, who has only eight home runs this year and is just two ahead of "The Big Puma," with 274.

At No. 20 in all-time home runs is yet another first baseman, Rafael Palmeiro, with 330 dingers.

Hillsborough, Arkansas duke it out

Hillsborough dealt Falcon starter Jonathan Sanchez 12 earned runs in his 6.1 innings of work, but it wasn't enough to seal the deal. The Hitmen and Falcons had to go to extra innings where Dexter Fowler hit a bases-loaded triple to give the Hitmen a 3-run lead. The Falcons went down in order in the bottom of the 11th to end the game. Casey McGehee and Justin Upton each had 4 RBIs for the Hitmen and Kelly Shoppach had 4 hits. Lance Berkman was 3-6 with 2 homers and 4 RBIs for the Falcons.

Vancouver's lead in the Morris Division fell to just a 1/2 game as Blue Ridge defeated Philadelphia 8-5 and Vancouver dropped a 6-2 decision to Carolina. Johnny Cueto pitched perhaps the best game of his young career, holding the Fist to 2 runs on 5 hits in 7 innings, while striking out 9. Meanwhile, Blue Ridge's bullpen and offense bailed out Gavin Floyd from a lousy start. The Bombers walked 7 batters in total, but escaped with the victory anyway.

How about that Ichiro? The redhot outfielder was 3-4 in Marietta's 10-6 win over Hoboken. Since returning from the injury last week, Ichiro is hitting .458 (22-48) with 14 runs and 16 RBIs.