PHILADELPHIA — Chase Utley makes two costly throwing errors, and suddenly he’s being mentioned with Steve Sax and Chuck Knoblauch.
Utley’s fielding gaffes were the talk of the town when the Phillies returned home Saturday after splitting the first two games of the NL Championship Series at Los Angeles.
Game 3 is tonight in soggy Philadelphia, weather permitting. The forecast calls for showers all day and it’s expected to be 42 degrees at game time. Cliff Lee starts for the Phillies against Hiroki Kuroda.
The weather will make it tough to grip the ball and make accurate throws. Utley, a four-time all-star second baseman, had enough problems throwing to first in sunny L.A. The Phillies overcame his blunder in Game 1, but it hurt them Friday.
Trailing 1-0, the Dodgers got their first two runners on in the bottom of the eighth. After failing to put down a sacrifice, Russell Martin then hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Pedro Feliz. It was a routine double-play ball except Utley’s relay throw sailed wide of first. Instead of two outs and a runner on third, the Dodgers had a run and one out. They went on to score again and held on for a 2-1 victory.
“I’m sure nobody in Philadelphia hates that more than Chase, but at the same time, he’ll correct it,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “I have all the faith in the world in him as far as that goes. That’s going to happen to anybody.”
Ronnie Belliard was bearing down on Utley and slid hard into second, possibly forcing him to rush his throw. Belliard, a fellow second baseman, sympathized with Utley.
“It’s nothing mental,” Belliard said. “He’s a good second baseman. It’s a difficult situation to turn a double play like that. You have to forget about it and do your job.”
In the series opener Thursday night, Utley made a similarly poor throw on what should have been an inning-ending, double-play grounder hit by Andre Ethier in the fifth inning. Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels was visibly upset that shortstop Jimmy Rollins and Utley couldn’t make the turn. Manny Ramirez followed with a two-run homer that cut Philadelphia’s lead to 5-4, but the Phillies won 8-6.
“I don’t think it’s an issue,” Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “If I was Charlie, I wouldn’t be concerned about him. He’s too tough a kid and he’s too good of a player. Stuff like that happens. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason why it happens, but the nature of the game is what it is.”
