MLB News: Phillies’ Ryan Howard is Taking Batting Practice

File this under “things I didn’t see happening this February.” On the final out of the Philadelphia Phillies season, Ryan Howard grounded out and popped his Achilles tendon as he headed towards first base. Not only had the Phillies lost – falling way short of expectations – but they now had their superstar piled in a heap on the first-base line.

Achilles tendon issues are nothing to mess with and they take a long time to recover from. Initially, people were speculating that Howard could return sometime in June or July. Yeah, not only did 2011 end poorly, but 2012 was automatically off to bad start.

Well, good news for Phillies fans, while he’s not ready to return yet, he did take batting practice on Wednesday. The 32-year old is happy with his recovery so far, but doesn’t want to put a “time limit” on it.

He started swinging a bat a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first action he’s seen against pitchers. He could get some rare action in spring training, but realistically he’s looking at a May return.