The Phillies reel in 2B Tadahito Iguchi (above)- and all they had to send back to the White Sox was the pitching coach’s son.
Meanwhile Utley will return. And Aaron Rowand’s impending FA contract might need a “no-tag” clause. From Todd Zolecki:
On the day the Phillies announced that Chase Utley, who broke his right hand Thursday, had successful surgery on the fourth metacarpal in his right hand, the team finds out that centerfielder Aaron Rowand would miss tonight’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates because he injured his left shoulder playing tag with his kids at a neighborhood barbecue Thursday night. It is the same shoulder he had surgery on in 2001 and is expected to be day-to-day. Michael Bourn was scheduled to start in centerfield in his absence.
Getting injured during actual off-field physical activity instead of playing Guitar Hero or opening a DVD? Guess that we already knew the dude was old school.
And speaking of old school: Kenny Lofton is an Indian again.
UPDATE: David Cohen of The Good Phight notes The Paradoxical Effect:
Take away one of a team’s star players, and you’d expect that team to do worse. But, for the Phillies, there’s been some sort of paradoxical effect going on in the past two years whenever they’ve lost a star player. Check out this chart:
Player Dates Out Without Player With Player
Aaron Rowand 5/11 – 5/26/06; 8/22 – 10/1/06 29-23 (.558) 56-54 (.509)
Bobby Abreu 7/29 – 10/1/06 38-23 (.623) 47-54 (.465)
Tom Gordon 5/2 – 7/16/07 34-32 (.515) 18-17 (.514)
Ryan Howard 5/11 – 5/23/07 8-4 (.667) 44-45 (.494)
Brett Myers since 5/24/07 29-26 (.527) 23-23 (.500)
Freddy Garcia since 6/8/07 21-19 (.525) 31-30 (.508)
To which we must now add:
Chase Utley 07/27 52-49 (.514) 1-0 (1.000)
Of course it helps when you play the Pirates. Aaron Rowand substitute Michael Bourn went 4-4 with a BB as leadoff man – Jimmy Rollins replaced Utley in the three hole -and Pat Burrell (.454 with 18 RBIs in his last 18 games) hit a two-run homer in the 8-1 Phillies win.
Jason,
Also of note is that the Phillies jumped back into the playoff picture last August while Utz was mired in a near month long post-streak slump.
Indeed. Three weeks of no Utley will only be somewhat less productive than the Utley who actually played last August.
Of course in truth the numbers above mean nothing. But even if the main reason the Phillies won more games without Abreu (and Utley) was the pitching, their run-scoring didn’t decline in either case.