October 18, 2009

Utley’s Throws

I find it interesting that when the Phillies talk about Chase Utley’s throwing problems in the first two games of the NLCS they concentrate on the errors:

Dodgers third base coach Larry Bowa, who managed Utley when he first came up in Philadelphia, doesn’t buy it.

“No, no, no,” Bowa said when asked if Utley’s issues are comparable to Sax and Knoblauch. “I don’t think it’s a problem at all. He rushed two throws. It was coincidental that he did it two games in a row.”

Those were not the only problems:

In between the two errors, Utley made three iffy throws on routine grounders. All three resulted in outs, but his erratic tosses suggest this could be more than a simple case of two bad throws under difficult circumstances in clutch spots.

We’ll see what happens over the next few games. The weather will likely be poor in Philadelphia tonight, so that could cause bad throws as well.

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