Did the White Sox Do Us a Favor?: Welcome "Gooch"

I'm impressed in the quick turnaround in finding a replacement for the injured Chase Utley. I'm impressed that it is a legitimate major league starter and not a glorified minor leaguer. We have, Tadahito Iguchi, who is suitable. Obviously, you can't replace Chase Utley. Unless ofcourse, we get Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan or Jeff Kent in his prime.

But I can't help but think that the Whitesox were doing us a favor.

The story goes that the Sox were looking to give a young rook more playing time and looking to dump salary. But I don't buy it. I really think the Sox felt a little guilty about the Freddy Garcia deal. They knowingly pulled a fast one on us in dealing a less-than-perfect Garcia, not to mention the lopsided deal we gave them in the Thome deal when we needed to make room for Howard. Granted we did get Aaron Rowan in the deal, but lets face it... Thome for a bunch of guys was like trading Charles Barkley for Jeff Hornacek, some scrubs and guy named West.

The bottom line is the Phillies proved that they don't want to die. They replaced Utley with someone who could help us. We're still going to give it a shot. That says something. Though I have a feeling this is the biggest deal we'll see as the deadline approaches.

UTLEY UPDATE - The Utley injury doesn't seem as gruesome as it once did. What was once 6-8 weeks has now turned into a possilbe 4 week stint. All the doctors on the radio are saying that a bone takes about 3 weeks to heal. From there, you have to take into account grip strenth, pain tolerance, and how well the bone has healed. Utley had surgery yesterday. Given his good health and his high tolerance for pain, he might just pull a Terrell Owens and be ready weeks before the Average Joe. I think we all know Utley is not the Average Joe. So send your get well cards to the Philliies c/o Chase Utley, and hope that Kendrick and Durbin are man enough to step up and perform.

PS - Last year Iguchi hit .281 with 18 homers and 67 RBIs, in 138 games. They are not Utley numbers, but serviceable nonetheless.