This situation with Chase Utley is sounding worse every day. The Phillies played us all and but I don’t know why. Maybe you know why.
Why not come out and be honest about the fact that Utley is battling tendinitis? What did they gain by starting out with the “spring training soreness” talk? I could see if maybe they didn’t want to get out until they could do a deal to acquire somebody to replace him in the lineup, but they haven’t done anything.
Now there’s talking about surgery. General Manager Ruben Amaro was asked if there was a chance that Utley could miss the entire season.
“I don’t think that that’s an option, no”, Amaro said according to Philly.com. “I couldn’t even begin to answer that. That is definitely not something we are talking about.”
“We’re trying to do this non-operatively. We’d rather not go in there and operate. We are going to try to exhaust all those possibilities. Now, it may turn out that we have to do something, as far as operation is concerned. But the goal is to get him well without doing it.”
Utley seems to be intent on making sure his entire career isn’t threatened.
“My goal is to alleviate this as quickly as possible, but still keep in mind that I have a career ahead of me.”
He wants to avoid surgery at all costs.
“We’re going to try to exhaust every avenue prior to that and continue to see how it goes and monitor it on a daily basis,” Utley said. “Again, it is frustrating, but at this point I have to stay positive and stay on top of things, which I think we’ve been doing.”
Phils manager Charlie Manuel is already thinking about playing the season without Utley.
“If we lost Utley and Werth, just from an offensive standpoint, and from a defensive standpoint, we’ve got to go like hell to find two real good players”, Manuel said to David Murphy of Philly.com. I’m not saying we can’t do it, because things work sometimes for you and you still have to go out there and play and you can’t make no excuses and all that. You guys have heard the way I talk before. But now we’re talking about two All-Star players.”
“I leave that up to the front office as far as all those things. Usually, they’ve been very (amenable) and very good at seeing what we need and trying to help us for the last three or four years in that respect, really. That’s kind of where I’ll leave that.”
Like I said the talk gets worse every day. If they keep up these talks for a couple of weeks, he’ll be getting ready to retire.
He is sounding and looking like a defeated man who knows he is on his last
legs as far as a top notch MLB Player.. The Phils need to do something here for it doesn’t appear that Utley is healthy enough to play anytime soon..
It’s a shame for he is still only 32 and should still have a good 3-4-5 of playing left but it doesn’t seem like his body will allow him to do so…
I don’t the want the Phils or their fans using this injury as an excuse..
Utley hasn’t been right for a good while now and the team’s failure to act is going to be the excuse not the injured player..
Ticket sales. It’s always about money.
Utley doesn’t want surgery for he knows he would probably be done for the Season and probably his Phillies career… Why wasn’t his knee checked out over the last 4 months during the Off-season..If swelling and pain don’t subside,then he probably needs at least a scope and some cleaning out and if they do it now, he could probably be back by July but who knows how is timing,etc,etc, would be.. I think his 2011 Season is lost, so lets not stand pat Ruben.. Polanco could always 2nd Base which is his best position and defensively an upgrade over Utley.. WHo else can play 3rd on Phils Roster..