SI.com – MLB – Burrell to have wrist surgery, out for season – Monday August 9, 2004 4:46PM
It’s not the deathblow, but it reduces the Phillies to basically three productive players: Abreu, Thome, and Utley. (Even the marginally productive David Bell is hurting, too.) For some reason, the AP story says that “he’ll be replaced in left field by a combination of Doug Glanville, Jason Michaels and rookie Lou Collier.” Collier made his major league debut in 1997. Leaving that aside, trading Ricky Ledee really looks bad now. Doug Glanville, left fielder?
The Phillies also traded for Cory Lidle. I said in comments that he’d replace Millwood, but actually he replaces Paul Abbott; the Phillies expect Vicente Padilla back this week to replace Millwood. Lidle is an “upgrade” in that he doesn’t kill the team’s chances in every start, but they’ll still need to score five runs to overcome him. Padilla, healthy, would be a good boost. Not enough to make up for that left field combo. Who would have thought that the Braves would not only be stronger in left field than the Phillies, but that they’d do it with a Marrero/Thomas platoon?
The Phillies have to be rueing the fact that they didn’t play to their potential early in the first half of the season. Letting us stick around then watching us get hot and take the division lead could lead to a couple of firings at GM and manager for them. I love it.
Did anyone read the BP article ‘Devil went down to Georgia’. I don’t subscribe but the teaser was enough to give me the gist. It does indeed seem that the John and Bobby may have sold their souls to the devil. I remember all of the pre season doomsaying, the negativity when we struggled out of the gate. How in the name of Ted Turner could anyone have predicted this? I don’t want to jinx us but I’m not superstitous. I know the season has enough games for us to collapse but the July run was incredible. I mean, Nick Green, Charles Thomas, J.D. Drew, Eli Marrero, Antonio Alfonseca, Johnny Estrada, John Thompson and Jaret Wright all playing excellent ball at the same time! Overcoming injuries to Ramirez, Chip, Furcal and Giles? If I ever get to see a game on TV again I’ll look closely but I’m sure that Bobby doesn’t look anything like Keaneu Reeves and John ain’t no Al Pacino.
I know the players aren’t looking ahead but the Cardinal series will be very indicative of where we really are. The unbalanced schedule has a way of masking team deficiencies.
Phillies lose tonight; they’re now a full 6 games behind the Braves and seven games back in the loss column.
Feels good!
I’m curious to see how the media discuss the recent spate of Philly injuries. Essentially they’re not having a worse time with injuries than did Atlanta – they lost Padilla and now Millwood, we lost Byrd and Horacio; they lose Burrell for two months, we lost Marcus for two months; they lost Wagner for a while, we’ve had a hobbled Chipper for most of the season. In the end I’ll be ticked if I see injuries blamed for their coming up short, given what ATL has had to fight through.
The season VORP totals for the left fielders:
Pat Burrell 21.2
Elarles Tharrero 26.6
That gap will only get bigger now…
Oh man, JUST IN….tom glavine got into a car accident went to hospital…not sure how serious it is but it was serious enough that he had to go to hospital….this JUST HAPPENED…my friend from NYC heard this on a local sports NYC radio channel 5 minutes ago and just called me to tell me….man, I hope he is okay
PS Mac – thanks. Sorry for the tardiness in learning to use the Type Key
From the ESPN story:
Glavine was “banged up” and taken to a hospital, according to Horwitz. He said the injuries were not life-threatening but was not more specific.
Sounds like he’s pretty banged up, but he’ll be ok. The part that hurts to read is this:
The Mets were off Monday and Glavine spent the day in Atlanta, Horwitz said.
Well Tommy if you hadn’t chased those few extra dollars to New York, you could spend every off day in Atlanta, plus you would be closing in on 300 wins.
Here’s hoping he makes a full and speedy recovery. He was always my favorite Brave and even though his greed and/or union loyality led him to New York, I hope he makes a run at 300.