Blame Game

One of the great unreported stories of the NLCS...Utley's really poor defense.

Chase Utley deserves a lot of the blame for the loss, but so too do Ibanez and Victorino, I think, in that order.

Ibanez was terrible. such a streaky hitter and he never caught fire during the entire series. I was looking at the stats and he hit .211 with 0 RBIs (only he and Howard were the only regulars with no runs batted in). Ibanez's futility is highlighted by the fact that Jimmy Rollins didn't score a run the entire series, even while batting 6th (ahead of Ibanez) and getting on base 8 times with 2 stolen bases.

Victorino hit .208 but didn't really seem to be a factor. Still don't understand why Charlie didn't run him more.

Interestingly, Carlos Ruiz only hit .167, worst among regulars, even below Utley's pathetic .182. But he did get on base in every game but one. He's been such an underrated player for this team, maybe this stat among all others highlights the adage "so goes Chooch, so go the Phillies."