Painful loss for the Phillies yesterday, and I'm not talking about the game. It's never good to blow a three-run lead against the last-place Nationals. But it's much worse to lose your MVP -- and a prime candidate for the NL MVP -- to a broken hand.Chase Utley will be sidelined for a while because of a fractured fourth metacarpal bone his right hand after being hit by a pitch from Nats rookie left-hander John Lannan. Assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said doctors have classified the fracture as "probably a 2 or 3 on a scale of 0 to 10, zero being the most mild." And, from everything he's heard, Utley said he thinks he could be back in less than a month.
Really, though, the Phillies won't have a timetable on Utley until at least later today after he sees hand specialist Randall Culp. Surgery remains an option, and from what I've been told, I wouldn't be surprised if Utley undergoes an operation to set the bone so that it heals as quickly as possible. Regardless, I don't expect the Phillies to have Utley for most of August, at the least. Some other players who've broken the same bone include Jeff Cirillo (out from June 24 through Sept. 2 in 2005), Lastings Milledge (missed the first six weeks of the 2004 season when he was a minor leaguer with the Mets) and Travis Hafner (injured last Sept. 1 and missed the rest of the season). But the degrees of their fractures, relative to Utley's, isn't known.
The Phillies have withstood short-term injuries to Ryan Madson and Ryan Howard and long-term injuries to starters Jon Lieber and Freddy Garcia and closers Tom Gordon and Brett Myers. But Martin Frank writes in today's 50-cent edition that they won't be able to overcome losing Utley.
What do you think? Do the Phillies still have a chance?
My take: For as much as Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Aaron Rowand, Shane Victorino and others do for the Phillies' offense, Utley is the anchor. He sort of reminds me of Don Mattingly in his prime years with the Yankees. Dave Winfield was the cleanup-hitting slugger (Howard). Rickey Henderson was the table-setting leadoff guy (Rollins). But Mattingly was the one you feared most. I feel that way about Utley. And the longer he's out, the harder it will be for the Phillies to keep pace with and eventually overtake the Mets and Braves.
Related question: With Utley out, how should Charlie Manuel structure the lineup?
*
For now, Abraham Nunez will play second base. But the Phillies are looking into potential trade options. Too bad Ronnie Belliard re-signed with the Nationals on Monday. Kansas City's Mark Grudzielanek may be available. He's owed about $1.5 million for the rest of the season, but his contract also contains a $4 million option for 2008 that kicks in if he gets 500 plate appearances. He has 286.
*
Neither Utley nor Manuel thought Lannan was intentionally throwing at Utley or Howard. For his part, Lannan said he tried to apologize to Utley on the field but couldn't get his attention.
*
Many thanks to Harry Mayes and Jamie Yannacone (the 700 Level Sports Fanatics) at Sports Radio 950, who were kind enough to have me as a guest for the final hour of their live show last night at Tony Luke's. Listen to the two-part podcast here. They also treated me to a roast pork with sharp that has to be the best in Philly. Thanks again, guys.
4 comments:
the phillies offense and improved bullpen can probably get them to play around .500 ball while utley is gone. but the phillies need to do better than .500 ball to get in first in the wild card/division and the key to that run was offense. the phillies still have guys who can drive the hell outta the ball(rollins/howard/burrel/rowand). some teams would kill just to have 2 of those guys let alone the 5 that we do have.
while there is still an outside shot considering that we did get miss howard for basically 20+ days, and no myers, and no garcia, and no lieber, and no gordon, and no myers again and to still be where we are at is a testament to this team. so i do think they can still compete, just not to the level of going to the playoffs. tough break!
They can still contend, after all, who would have thought they would contend last year after losing Bobby Abreu in a trade for next to nothing? The key will be the pitching. It got hot late in the second half last year, and that is what is going to have to happen this year.
The answer is no - the Phillies can NOT contend in the NL East without Chase.
When you look at the number three hitters across the NL, and maybe in all of baseball, and if you take any of them off the team it severely cripples that team. When you compare number three hitters in terms of production, Utley's at the top. You're taking the BEST three-hole hitter out of your line-up. Not only that, but now you might have to move Rowand up to the three-spot and rely on Burrell to protect Howard, which severely hinders the chemistry the line-up has generated lately.
Combine that with mediocre (at best) pitching and the relatively little information we have about Brett Myers' shoulder, AND the question marks surrounding how long JD Durbin and Kyle Kendrick's lightning in the bottle can last, and there's almost no chance the Phils can seriously contend if the Mets will be buyers (and we all know they will be) at the trade deadline.
Sadly, I agree with Rob... I think this is very very bad news. The awesome hitting has been making up for terrible pitching... and the hitting just got a lot less awesome.
Post a Comment