For the first time since stumbling out of the batter's box and then collapsing to the ground at Citizens Bank Park on Oct. 7, 2011, the final night of the Phillies season, Ryan Howard stepped into a batter's box.

He fell right into a hitting group with Chase Utley, Jim Thome and Juan Pierre. He looked comfortable.

Ryan Howard is more than four months removed from surgery to repair a torn left Achilles, performed on Oct. 12. On Wednesday, two days before position players will hold their first official workout at the Carpenter Complex, Howard was in line with the rest of his early-to-arrive teammates in pre-spring training batting practice.

So is he ahead of schedule?

"I feel good, where I am right now," Howard said in a post-practice press conference. "I mean, I don’t know what everybody else’s expectations were for me to be at this point, but I feel good. (It's) not exactly where I want to be yet, there is still a lot of strengthening that needs to take place, change of direction and working on those kinds of things, but I feel all right."

Howard is expected to begin the season on the disabled list. Before spring training began, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said that if his former MVP was back at some point in May, he'd be happy.

When asked if he had a personal goal in mind for returning to the field, Howard didn't commit to a date, but instead to a full recovery.

"Obviously the goal is to want to get out there as soon as possible," Howard said. "But at the same time, with this, I’m just listening to my body and it will let me know when it’s ready. I’ve been talking with the training staff and I’ve been able to do some things, taking some ground balls, doing some hitting, doing baseball-type movements, it feels good to be able to do that, but at the same time we have to get the strength and mentally get to the point where, hey, I don’t have to worry about it."

Howard began full baseball activities earlier this week, taking ground balls at first base and doing some light jogging exercises on Monday.



More in tomorrow's Daily Times and on delcotimes.com. Here is some video from Howard's press conference today.