Top

Chase Utley Injury

March 20, 2012 by · Comments Off on Chase Utley Injury 

Chase Utley Injury, Ruben Amaro Jr. sat atop the bench in the Phillies dugout at Bright House Field on Monday morning hoping to temper the rampant concern regarding Chase Utley’s arthritic right knee.

If anything, the news got worse. Utley left camp Monday to see a knee specialist in hopes that he can find some way of alleviating the chronic pain that has kept him from anything more than basic batting practice since late February.

Surgery is not a consideration, Amaro said, but there doesn’t appear to be any obvious plan of action.

“He’s got a cartilage issue, and you can’t grow cartilage,” Amaro said.

A year ago, Utley’s problems were relegated to his right knee. This time around, both knees are hurting, and Amaro said the left is the more serious of the two.

“The guy’s got bad knees. We know it,” Amaro said.

“That’s a fact, and we’re just trying to limit and also make sure that he’s ready to go and feeling comfortable about the bulk of the season.”

The bulk of the season may now best-case scenario, but the truth is no timeline can be trusted at this point.

Utley said as recently as Saturday that he still planned to be ready for Opening Day — and just a week ago Amaro virtually guaranteed it — but that now seems virtually impossible.

In fact, when pressed on the issue of Utley’s future, Amaro offered little in the way of reassurances.

Bottom