Chase Utley

Bill Simmons calls it the Ewing Theory.  Other sports fans have associated the phenomenon with Peyton Manning, Alex Rodriguez, Tiki Barber and Drew Bledsoe. But in Philadelphia, there is only one player who should come to mind:

Bobby Abreu.

A red-hot cleanup hitter and a clutch bullpen performance led the host Phillies past the feisty New York Mets 10-7. With the victory, the home team held onto first place in the very early stages of the 2011 pennant race.

With the temperature holding around 50 degrees, both the climate and the final score more resembled a defensive battle in the National Football League. Of course, it was a cool evening for baseball and an unexpected April slugfest.

Injuries are a part of any game, and we know that some injuries mean more to a team than others.  A star first baseman means a lot more to a team than a bench player who might get 20 at bats as a pinch hitter per year if he’s lucky.

An injury means more to a team if a player is a big part of their pitching or hitting games too.  If a team is like the 2010 San Diego Padres and does not have a very good offense, they would be more at risk if their start hitter, Adrian Gonzalez (now with the Boston Red Sox) was injured.

The 2011 Philadelphia Phillies have had a rough spring so far, losing closer Brad Lidge and second baseman Chase Utley for indeterminate periods.

Luis Castillo could not even lock down the starting second-base job, which will now fall to Wilson Valdez for Friday's season opener.

The beginning of the Philadelphia Phillies' most anticipated season to date starts tomorrow afternoon in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at Citizens Bank Park at 1:05 p.m. EDT when Roy Halladay starts for the Phillies against their former "ace" Brett Myers, who will be starting for the Houston Astros to begin a three-game series.

This season is undoubtedly one that all Phillies fans are looking forward to, and one that they hopefully will never forget for all the right reasons.

The Philadelphia Phillies enter the 2011 season as the class of the National League East by a large margin. The Phillies continue to upgrade their team while their divisional opponents struggle to keep up.

The Philadelphia Phillies cured? Say it isn’t so.

But what if that figment of our imagination came true? What if the World Series favorite Philadelphia Phillies were indeed cursed from here on out?

Looking at the way this team is shaping up for the 2011 season, I’d put my money on the Phillies being cursed… here’s why.

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Despite a tough, injury-plagued spring training, today’s Philadelphia Phillies are about to break camp surrounded by the type of lofty expectations that are attached to very few ballclubs.

Yes, injuries to Chase Utley and Brad Lidge have scaled down some of the unchecked optimism about the regular season (okay, they won’t win 115 or so games), but they are still the odds-on choice to advance to the World Series for the third time in the last four years.

When Cliff Lee decided to re-join the Philadelphia Phillies in mid-December, the first thought racing through the mind of every Phils' fan rotated around a star studded rotation that would help the team get the revenge they declared they would seek following a bitter ending to the National League Championship Series.

Philadelphia Phillies (2010 record: 97-65) The Phillies entered the new year as one of a handful of teams with a legitimate claim to the designation as the best team in baseball. They entered the free agency fray at the end of the process and lured southpaw Cliff Lee away from both the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees.