By: Tim Kelly, Managing Editor 
Prior to yesterday's loss to the Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies manager Pete Mackanin announced that struggling first baseman Ryan Howard was going to be rested for the next 'three to four days.'
While Howard was supportive of his replacement Tommy Joseph when he spoke to reporters prior to the game, the former National League MVP told a group of reporters, including MLB.com's Todd Zolecki, that he has does not intend to, in his words, quit:
"No, I'm not going to quit," Howard said. "That's not in the vocabulary. That's the easiest thing to do — quit and give up when things are hard. You really see what you're made of when those things are not going the way you want them to go."
'Quit' is a rather vague term. If Howard means that he's not going to retire mid-season like Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Ken Griffey Jr. did, then that's pretty believable. However, if Howard means to suggest that this is just a bump in the road that he has the ability to recover from, he's wrong.
As I noted in the latest edition of ''Phillies nuggets,'' Howard continuing to play but announcing this as his last season wouldn't be quitting, but rather making the best decision for all parties involved:
I understand that Howard may feel like he can continue to play, but his decline isn't sudden, it's been very visible since he tore his Achilles in 2011. Howard now appears to be entirely finished, and when you couple that with the physical toll that the last five years have had on Howard's body, he needs to come to the realization that this is it. There's a time in an athlete's career where the public doubts them and they are in a position to come back and attempt to prove them wrong. There's also a time in most athlete's careers where it doesn't come down to not working hard or having been able to do it, but simply that because of injuries and aging they are not capable of performing at the world-class level that they once did. Howard is at the latter.
Howard, 36, is batting .154, with a .215 on-base percentage and a .343 slugging percentage through the his first 143 at-bats of 2016. 2016 is the final guaranteed year of his contract.
