Major League Baseball

Utley draws fans' ire in Cincy

Published Oct. 11, 2010 10:06 a.m. ET

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CINCINNATI - As Chase Utley jogged toward his Phillies teammates on the third-base line during Game 3 introductions Sunday, the burst of boos was so sudden and intense that the stoic second baseman momentarily let his mask slip.

He smiled.

For the nearly three hours that followed, normally civil Reds fans hooted at him, chanted "Cheater!" and found other ways to pan his Game 2 acting performance, when he was awarded first even though a 101-m.p.h. fastball appeared to miss his hand as it reentered Earth's orbit.

After the decisive Game 3, and another controversial and pivotal moment involving Utley, the 44,599 fans had an entirely new reason to dislike him.

Utley's fifth-inning homer, passing just beyond the glove of centerfielder Drew Stubbs and off the clumsily thrust glove of a Reds fan, gave Cole Hamels a huge insurance run in the lefthander's 2-0 National League division series-clinching victory.

In fact, given Utley's performance throughout the Phillies' first postseason sweep and the stability he provides them even in less stressful times, the crowd would have been justified if their "Cheater!" shouts had instead been "Jeter."

It was Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, you'll recall, who also faked getting hit by a pitch late in the regular season and who, much as Utley did in Games 2 and 3, usually discovers some way to earn his team a victory, if not an Oscar.

"That's the kind of player Chase is," said Shane Victorino. "A game like this, when we need a big hit, you know he's going to step up."

Despite hitting the ball consistently hard, Utley went just 3 for 11 in the division series and made two of his team's three errors. But if the Phillies' first-round triumph had a signature moment, it was his mad trip around the bases in Game 2 - coaxing the faux hit-by-pitch, barely beating a throw to second, stumbling after a Stooges-like double-take as he retreated and then took off on Jay Bruce's error, and finally coming close to missing third en route to scoring.

Sunday's winning play came with the Phils up, 1-0, in the fifth. With two outs, the record Reds crowd gave Utley a collective and throaty thumbs-down.

Asked if he heard or reacted to the noise directed his way, Utley, soaked with champagne, was, not surprisingly, less than revelatory. "Over the past few years we've played in front of some hostile crowds," he said. "So you try not to let it affect you and tune it out as much as you can. And as a team, I think we do a good job of that."

In the first inning, he had flown out to the warning track, 400 feet away in center field. Then, in the third, Reds starter Johnny Cueto struck him out.

This time, he took a Cueto change-up for strike one. Reluctant to throw another fastball to Utley, who has hit several to the warning track in this series, he tried to get a slider past him.

Utley was waiting. With a swing as compact and effective as an Ali jab, he powered the ball toward the prow of the replica steamboat in right-center.

Stubbs kept retreating until he felt the wall behind him. The Reds outfielder leaped but the ball dropped just beyond him, caroming off the glove of an overmatched fan and tumbling into the stands.

Utley, head down, running so fast it seemed he was hoping to reach the dugout before the angry fans recognized him and this latest evil deed, circled the bases. "No, actually I didn't think it was gone," he said. "I knew I hit it OK. I hit a ball in the first inning that I thought I hit a little better than that one. Lucky for us the weather's still warm and it's a good hitter's ballpark."

Reds manager Dusty Baker, noticing the fans' failed effort but believing he might have reached over the taboo yellow line, asked for a replay.

The umpires conferred before four of them broke away and jogged off in tandem, like some black-clad Four Horsemen of the Infield-Fly Rule, toward the video replay room.

They emerged after the briefest of deliberations, with crew chief John Hirschbeck signaling homer. It was Utley's 10th in the postseason, breaking a tie with teammate Jayson Werth for the club lead.

"He likes to hit in this yard," Phils manager Charlie Manuel said. "Chase is what I call an everyday player. Every single day he brings it."

That run, on top of the unearned one the Phils scored in the first, was all Hamels needed. A few innings later, Utley and his joyful teammates were bounding off the field and toward yet another champagne celebration in the clubhouse.

And, perhaps, the Phillies and Utley were also headed toward another late-October meeting with "Jeter! Jeter!"

Contact staff writer Frank Fitzpatrick at 215-854-5068

or ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com.

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