Chase Utley has taken his next step towards rejoining the Phillies.
The injured second baseman will begin a 20-day rehab assignment on Tuesday, with July 2nd being the latest he can return to the team. He’ll begin play as a DH with Single A Clearwater.
While its good to see Utley continue to make progress towards returning to the big leagues, the fact that he still isn’t well enough to play the field remains disturbing. After over three months of rehab workouts and rest, he still hasn’t felt good enough to take the field and expects to be back at second base for the Phillies within three weeks?
It makes me wonder just how bad Utley’s knee condition really is right now, and how much worse its going to become in the future. The Phillies can’t keep counting on a player that is going to spend half of the regular season getting himself ready to play.
By the time Utley returns to the field this season, it may already be too late for him to contribute in any meaningful way.
Big woopty do. Too little, too late. He should have been on the freaking field already. He’s only going to be back on the DL again. He has killed this team for 2 years now. What the hell is he actually going to contribute to this team, if he isn’t able to play the field, without his knees killing him. He no longer has the legs, or core power to hit for power, nor the legs to run the bases, like he did. I hope he retires, so we can use his salary to better, this bunch of slop!
WE have all been witness to a tragic decline of epic proportions of a great great player. it happened waaaaay too early… shame.
He probably knows he’s finished, just milking it to collect on the contract, how long does it take to figure out if the knees will hold up, go out and try them out, stop this baby-ass attitude, be an athlete, suck it up, take some advil do whatever is necessary to play, and if that doesn’t work be a man about it and leave
“tragic decline of epic proportions of a great player”, what a joke
he wasn’t a great player? and you don’t think this is the end of the road? dude this guy is shot– no more .315, 32 HR and 130 runs scored (numbers put up by a great player)
he will have his knees replaced by the time he’s 50
He is done. He was a very good 2nd baseman thats time has come.
The Phillies need to blow up this team, Trade Hamels, Lee and whatever is necessary and rebuild. At least we got 1 championship out of this core….