Baseball is Poop

Checking in on some of the stories, stats and players we've been following in this space all season:
Albert Pujols
The Great Pooh Holes got only 565 official at bats this season. For the second straight year he fell short of the standard he set in his first five seasons when he came to the plate 590, 590, 591, 592 and 591 times.

Scott Linebrink
Appeared in only 71 games this season after appearing exactly 73 times in 2004, 2005 & 2006. But Linebrink was traded midseason, and left the team for a few days when his child was born. If not for those two incidents he might have reached 73. I actually e-mailed Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about it, hoping he could tell Linebrink or Manager Ned Yost and influence them to reach that number but he said:
"I don't understand the revelance of that number...I guess it's sort of interesting he usually pitches the same number of games but I guarantee you neither Yost nor Linebrink is thinking about it. I would attribute the whole thing to coincidence. Interesting, but coincidence."

Ryan Howard
199 strikeouts, a new major league record. Bobby Bonds held the record with 189 in 1970 until Adam Dunn broke it with 195 in 2004.

Micah Owings
Owings went 8-8 with a 4.30 ERA for the Diamondbacks this season. But way more impressive was the fact that he hit .333 with 4 homers and 15 RBI and an OPS of 1.032 in 60 at bats. Those are stats that make me believer Owings should become the next Rick Ankiel (minus the HGH) and drop pitching for hitting. Or Owings should play the field the four days when he's not on the mound. In a game on August 18th Owing went 4 for 5 with 2 homers and 6 RBI. And on September 27, he went 4 for 4 with 3 RBI.

Chone Figgins
He missed April and started the season 12 for 90. But starting on May 31st he went 134 for 352 (.381).

Aaron Harang
He started the season 14-3, but faltered in September going 2-3 down the stretch. He still got 22% of his team's wins, the highest percentage of any pitcher this year. His winning percentage of .727 was .283 higher than his team's.