Just after 4 p.m. Friday, after he had scrambled around the visitors' clubhouse at Nationals Park looking for a proper bat — checking the lockers and equipment bags of teammates — Chase Utley climbed into the batting cage that sits underneath the stands, just inside from the dugout and the field. A coach placed a ball on a tee. Utley loaded up his left-handed swing. He unleashed — thwack! — and punished the ball into the net. And then he calmly reloaded — another swing in preparation for another game in a career that is among the best the Philadelphia Phillies have ever seen.
That night Utley went 2 for 4 to cap the kind of remarkable week that has marked so many of his 13 seasons with the Phillies. In seven games, Utley went 11 for 24 (.458) with five doubles, a triple and four walks, good for an on-base-plus-slugging percentage of 1.286.
But the most amazing part: That stretch raised his average for the season to .179.
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The Phillies of 2015 aren’t the Phillies of 2008, and Chase Utley is 36, not 29. He is part of the athletic furniture in Philadelphia, yet so much has changed around him. Five straight division championships and the 2008 World Series title have fizzled into back-to-back campaigns of 73-89, and the current Phillies team would have to play better baseball over the remaining three-quarters of the season to match that mark.
Yet Utley remains, struggling just like his club.
“It’s tough for anybody,” said Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth, a teammate on that championship team in Philadelphia and one of Utley’s closest friends in the game. “But for him, it’s tough because I know he’s prepared. I don’t think he’s injured. I just don’t know what to make of it.”
Utley isn't much for talking about his game, whether he is in the midst of one of his six all-star seasons or in the midst of ... this. On May 8 he went 0 for 4 against the Mets, making him hitless in 19 straight at-bats. His average, 26 games into the Phillies' season, dropped to an inconceivable .099. The next day, Manager Ryne Sandberg, who had watched Utley take what he considered to be good at-bats and scald balls at fielders, didn't write his name in the lineup.
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“It was frustrating, because there wasn’t a whole lot to say to him,” Sandberg said. “When you’re hitting line drives all over the place, and [you say] ‘Stay with him and stay right there and keep swinging it.’ If I was in his shoes, that’d get a little bit old.”
From 2005 to 2014, a 10-season stretch, no second baseman in the game had a higher OPS than Utley’s .866. Not Robinson Cano. Not Dustin Pedroia. According to FanGraphs, he was worth 59.4 wins above a replacement player during that span, about six victories a year. Cano, second among second basemen during that decade, was worth 40.8.
Those are the results. But what defines Utley’s career, at least among his peers, is what happens under the stands in the hours before the game, when it’s just him and a coach and a tee.
“I’ve seen what he does on a day in, day out basis in the way he prepares,” Werth said. “He’s the most prepared man on the field at all times. Maybe not physically anymore because of the age, but even then, I wouldn’t doubt him. Mentally, and just knowing the game, knowing what’s going to happen, he’s the best. He’s the best player I’ve ever played with.”
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And because of that, he is treasured in Philadelphia. Though Jimmy Rollins, forever Utley’s double-play partner and a Phillies icon as well, was traded to the Dodgers in the offseason, some of the core of those great Phillies teams remains. Ryan Howard was at first base Friday night, but it is common knowledge that Philadelphia would be happy to unload him for a prospect, any prospect. Cole Hamels pitched Saturday, but he is considered one of the primary pieces in the upcoming trade market, and his time with the only team he has ever known seems limited, too.
Yet Utley remains. He has a vesting option in his contract for 2016, worth $15 million, that kicks in if he makes 500 plate appearances this year. Currently, he’s on pace for 560. So maybe he’ll be back.
Either way, the Phillies, in the midst of what needs to be a major rebuild, likely won’t rise near the top of the National League East. But to those who have been around Chase Utley, who know him, don’t believe for a second that he’ll end this season hitting .179.
“When you’re playing on a team that’s losing, it’s tough,” Werth said. “Maybe that has something to do with it. But still, I wouldn’t doubt him for a second. It’s there. It’s there.”
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