Comments on: Utley’s Slide: Leadership Or Carelessness?

By: Hendo

Hendo — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:50:42 +0000

This Nats fan’s POV:

Dumb, dumb, breathtakingly dumbass play.

But Manuel said exactly what needed saying.

By: ryan

ryan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:08:06 +0000

more players in baseball need to play like chase utley. i just wish he had more fire. sure he plays hard all the time, but where’s the emotion, the fire!?. just one time when he gets hit by a pitch i’d like to see him charge the mound. there’s been times where everybody in the park knew he was beaned purposely and he just puts his head down and walks to first. i want to see some more fire outta him personally. he needs a little more lenny dykstra in him and he’d be the perfect baseball player.

By: TJ

TJ — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:05:42 +0000

I dont get it, Utley saw that Flores had caught the ball before he giot there. Did you want him to get in a rundown or tagged out? What do you do when a catcher has the ball and your running full speed to home? You try to knock the ball out. If he had done that there wouldnt be skepticism of a dirty play. Get your panties out of a bunch and move on. Nothing dirty about trying to get a run on a heads up hustle play like that.

By: DD

DD — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:54:50 +0000

A catcher job is to defend homeplate and a base runners job is to score the run. That is the nature of the game. Both players did their job and there was absolutely nothing there but a good, fair, hard baseball play. That is why they play and why we pay to watch the best play. If a catcher doesn’t want to get hit, don’t block the plate and see how long you stay employed (Rod Barajas I guess is exempt). I for one want to see the players I pay to see, compete down to the last out, every game.

By: dr.droner

dr.droner — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:37:22 +0000

any fan base of a team that has a “wave your hat” segment in between innings to rile up the crowd would complain about such a hit. those that were a the game monday know what i’m talking about. they haven’t seen anything like utley’s balls out play from their lackluster team.

By: Chris.I

Chris.I — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:13:31 +0000

LOL @ Howard was going to strike out anyway..That was good! I cant argue that one. There was nothing dirty about the play what-so-ever. Thats what happens when you block the plate. Its how you play the game. Did you see the look on Utley’s face after he took the field, and they took him out in the stretcher? If anyone knows what its like to get injured, it’s Utley! (Flashback to last season against the Nationals). The Nats have no room to talk.

By: BB

BB — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:49:06 +0000

Chase Utley and his ‘run over the catcher’ mentally is great to fire up a team or get a big run, but the smart baseball thing to do in that situation would be a hard slide at the front of the plate, not a headfirst dive OVER the plate. This has happened numerous times this year and has cost the Phillies runs. Bruntlett slides earlier in the season, is definately going to be safe and the Phils win the game. I’m all for hard nosed players, but only in situations where a slide isn’t going to get you to the plate faster.

By: J-Man

J-Man — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:31:46 +0000

It wasn’t a dirty play thats what you do when your running home and the catcher blocking the plate,if teams and people don’t like it,tell the catcher to not block then.

By: NJ

NJ — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:00:44 +0000

Yeah the do have some fans… They drink wine, eat cheese, complain A LOT and still think they have Vlad in right field.

By: philsphan

philsphan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:11:22 +0000

Wait a second. The Nationals have fans?

By: Greg B

Greg B — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:39:20 +0000

I was thinking 16-7 would get the job done. That lets the Mets go 13-10. Is that too tall of an order? Maybe, but our SP has been going pretty well sans Kendrick and the schedule certainly lightens up after Milwaukee. Either way, every game is huge from here on out.

By: NJ

NJ — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:35:25 +0000

It was a heads up play and thats why Acta isn’t screaming from the roof-tops like Ozzie Guillen would. If it was a dirty play he would have charged the Flores but he didn’t and it was a close play, it’s not like on any club the players spend hours refining the proper technique for stealing home so that the catcher doesn’t get injured.

The Nats press unfortunately seems to still have an inferiority complex…

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:32:28 +0000

Originally I thought 90 wins would be enough to win the east division
for the Phillies. They are now 76-63 and 2 games behind the red hot
Mets. The team would need to go 14-9 and the Mets 11-12. That is no
longer a likely scenario… not the way the Mets are playing. The
weekend series (3 games) with the Mets at Shea will provide the answer.
It will be the Phillies LAST chance to win a series against them as
they are o for 4 with one split (losing 10 of 15 games).

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:32:22 +0000

seriously, Chase had to be thinking that with 2 outs and sitting on 3B with Howard up. Howard Ks 40% of the time…. and now that this is all occurring to me right now, I applaud the play by Utley that much more. Why should he stand there and watch him strike out…. again… score a damn run.

NC-Jason… maybe a footnote? either way, we’re cool.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:29:51 +0000

We all know that Utley plays hard and as someone mentioned, a fair comparison to Pete Rose. Utley may also wanted to fire up the team.

The Phillies unfortunately didn’t gained ground on the Mets (2 games back). This leads me to another topic that I believe Tim Malcolm and other posters here have not mentioned.

When Mets aquired Luis Ayala from the Nats on August 17th, I felt that There is no way Luis Ayala should have cleared waivers past the Phillies, regardless if he is a Philly killer or not. Any single relief pitcher that can improve the Mets should never make it past the Phils as
long as we sit games behind them in the standings.

I don’t pretend to know the art of waiver wire trades – but I am
quite positive that all the Phillies had to do is claim him and then
offer the Nationals next to nothing to either a) keep him in AAA
until Sept 1 or b) have the Nationals pull him back and eliminate his
waiver eligibility. And they didn’t. If Ayala gets ONE out against
the Phils in the upcoming weekend series, then its solely to blame on the front office.

As I type this, the Mets are on a roll as Ayala, their newest
closer, recorded his 5th save (since the trade) last night. Apparently,
Ayala also have given the rest of the bullpen a lift as they combined
to provide seven shutout innings in the 6-5 win in 10 innings over a
good Milwaukee club. The Mets have won 5 of 6 on the current road trip
and 16 out of last 21 for a season best 17 games over .500 (78-61).
This team couldn’t pick a better time to click on all cylinders which
unfortunately for the Phillies is bad news.

By: KM

KM — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:13:04 +0000

Howard was primed and ready to strike out anyway.

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:09:30 +0000

I loved the gutsiness. I didn’t like that he did that with two runners on, two outs, and the NL’s RBI leader at the plate. Just sayin’.

By: Eb

Eb — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:37:12 +0000

The Quote on Choking makes no sense. The phils are in second place, the only people who can choke are the Muts

By: Don M

Don M — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:33:56 +0000

July 26th is the stretch-run??

By: NC Jason

NC Jason — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:33:07 +0000

Todd I apologize – next time I will include parenthetical citations. Either way the Nats suck