The Philadelphia Phillies haven't had much bad news in the past month and a half or so, but today they were dealt a devastating blow. Chase Utley, easily the best second baseman in baseball -- with all due respect to my boy, Mark DeRosa, naturally -- will undergo surgery on his right hip. Jayson Stark reports: Utley consistently downplayed speculation about his bad hip during the second half of the postseason. But the Phillies revealed Thursday that since the World Series, he has had the hip evaluated by Phillies team physician Michael Ciccotti, of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Rothman Institute, and by Dr. Bryan Kelly, of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.Indications are that the Phillies expect to have Utley back for opening day of the '09 season, but Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus states the injury is very serious and could keep Utley out for six months. If that's the case, we're talking six weeks the Phillies would be without their all-star second baseman.
Both doctors recommended that Utley undergo surgery on his right hip. That procedure, described by the club as an "arthroscopic evaluation with treatment of any labral or bony injury," will be performed by Dr. Kelly next week.
Like I said, a devastating blow.
