Philadelphia Phillies’ Chase Utley preparing for Spring Training and 2013 regular season-MLB News
As the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season has come to an end, Philadelphia Phillies’ Chase Utley eyes on the future and is looking to enter into Spring Training fully prepared.
His expedition in the recently concluded regular season was marred by a knee injury as he stayed out of a huge number of games.
His absence in the line-up was a big blow to the Phillies’ offence.
With years of struggle with his knee, Utley has become familiar with his body. Thus, he is in a better position now to manage it properly. He is more likely to remain fit for the upcoming seasons and play throughout Spring Training.
Utley, for the last few years, has been an irregular member of the team. With the kind of hitting ability that he boasts, he is an extremely important component of the Phillies’ offence.
Experts believe that if Utley joined the Phillies earlier in 2012 regular season, they will not have suffered lengthy losing streaks due to poor performance of their offence.
His significance to the team can be realised from the fact that as soon as he appeared in the line-up late in the season, the Phillies’ win-loss record improved.
Regardless of what happened in the current season, Utley is focusing on playing consistently from now on. His first and foremost objective is showing command and composure at the plate in Spring Training. From there then he will look to launch his journey
toward becoming successful in the 2013 MLB regular season.
Utley has acknowledged that his power has declined to some extent but he resolves to work on it and restore his technique by the start of the upcoming season.
“I feel like I’m not as strong as I was a few years ago because I’m not able to do as much lower-body weight training, if you will,” Utley said. “But this offseason I’m going to tinker with that a little and see if I can move a little bit forward from where
I was the past couple years.”
Utley will be looking to play the entire next year without interruption and putting up quality shows at the plate. It will be interesting to see how he prepares for it in the offseason.
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