/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/32629373/20130807_hcs_sy4_011.0.jpg)
I knew I should have kept quiet. After ten games, Chase Utley was the best baseball player in the universe.
And I had to go and write about it, explaining how Utley was performing at a level he had matched only a few times over the course of his career. I concluded the piece saying that maybe we can get excited "that one of the things we can really enjoy this year is watching a rejuvenated Utley return to the top of his game."
I should have known better. Way back when The Good Phight was a baby, I wrote about Chase Utley's Jeckyll and Hyde season in 2006. That season, Utley fluctuated every 80 to 100 plate appearances between greatness and Galvis.
Well, he's doing it again. And unlike in 2006, Utley's Galvis-like stretch is almost twice as long as his stretch of Bondsian production . . . and it is still continuing:
PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | BB/K | |
First 10 | 46 | 0.500 | 0.565 | 0.875 | 1.440 | 2.50 |
Since | 74 | 0.235 | 0.284 | 0.309 | 0.593 | 0.45 |
We all know that as much as Utley is not a 1.440 OPS player, he is also not a .593 OPS player. It would be nice, though, for the player in the middle to appear again sometime soon for the Phillies.
And if you want, go ahead and blame me.