August 4th, 2006 by Jimmy Bones
Chase Utley is Insane!
Someone forgot to tell Chase Utley that the Phillies season is over. Utley extended his hitting streak to 35 games with a 1st inning double last night. With that hit, Utley is now tied with Luis Castillo as the 4th longest hitting streak since Joe DiMaggio had his record setting 56 game streak. Of course this only ranks as the 2nd longest streak on his own team this year, as Jimmy Rollins polished off his 38 gamer earlier this year.
Unlike Rollins, Utley’s streak is no fluke. This guy is one hell of a hitter. Every time you see the guy in the batters-box he’s pounding line drive after line drive. You never see him giving away at-bats or lofting wimpy pop-outs. Utley has surprising power (21 home runs) and decent speed (12 stolen bases). He’s a superstar and now the whole world is noticing.
It’s too bad Utley is stuck on a team that has no chance of making the playoffs. The Phillies are a mile back from the Mets and just had a disastrous trading deadline. Even though they were completely ripped off in the Abreu trade, it was a signal that the Phillies are now Utley and Ryan Howard’s team. For a team that’s rebuilding, those two young superstars are a nice foundation to start with.
Can Utley break DiMaggio’s record? Its doubtful. Thirty-five games is unbelievable and he’s still 21 games away. To put things into perspective he’d have to keep his streak going until at least August 24th just to tie DiMaggio. This is the toughest record in all of sport to break. But Utley has a shot and it’ll sure be fun to watch him chase down greatness.
RELATED POSTS
1 Comment
August 7th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
You had to go and jinx my man Chase didn’t you!
Leave a Reply