"Ryan Howard is swinging the bat well right now.

Against lefties. Righties. It hasn't mattered.

Even some of his outs have been smacked.

The same is true for some of his teammates.

But the Phillies first baseman is not getting excited about the club's recent offensive output.

He's not relieved to see the club score runs in bunches.

All he's focused on, he said, is the victories the team has racked up en route to the majors' best record (42-26 before Wednesday night's game).

"We're going out there and winning games," he said Wednesday. "I don't know what our potential is besides that.

"Everybody else thinks we're supposed to be scoring 20 runs a game. Sorry to inform you. It doesn't work like that."

Perhaps it is just coincidence that the Phils have put together a five-game winning streak (heading into Wednesday's second game) at a time when they have scored 35 runs — the most of any such stretch since the first full week of the season, when they scored the same amount of runs but were just 3-2.

The Phillies did have one previous five-game winning streak this season, but that was all pitching. The offense produced just 16 runs in that stretch (April 20-24)."