The Phillies are dropping players like flies. First Placido Polanco, who will miss three to four weeks with elbow inflammation. Now, it’s Chase Utley, who will miss 8 weeks following thumb surgery. And the Phillies claim not to be worried. Yea, right, and the two losses in a row are okay right? Keep telling yourself that.
The Phillies have 6 players on the DL right now. They sit 3.5 games back of the NL East leading Braves. They lost to Pittsburgh….the Pirates people. The Phillies are kidding themselves if they think they can continue on as normal with these losses.
There is talk that they will go out and pick up a couple of players to “get them through” as it were. They have done it before and it did offer some measure of success. But you can’t be guaranteed of that with a short term pickup and you have to pick from what’s available. And the last time the Phillies tried to get some short term outside help, clubs upped the asking price and wanted top prospects in return. Something the Phillies balked at before.
The team might try to get some help from those already on the team. Wilson Valdez and Greg Dobbs are likely prospects for them to use to try and plug the gaps. But to think you are going to plug a Valdez into an Utley hole and have your team get the same results….well that’s just crazy. Sure he can be serviceable, but he’s not going to put up the numbers necessary to keep you in the hunt for the NL East lead. He’s just not.
The Phillies better hope that whatever solution they come up with works because after the Pirates series, they face the Braves. If they were to lose more games to the Pirates and then lose a series to the Braves, they could find themselves in a very big hole. Ruh Roh Shaggy looks like you need a Scooby snack pronto.
© photo credit: thisisbossi
