"It looked like he kind of lost the grip,'' first baseman Ryan Howard said after he had had no chance to make a play on Utley's throw. "When he went to turn it, it flew out of his hands."
Not so, Utley said. No alibis.
"I had plenty of time to turn it - I just didn't make a good throw,'' Utley said at his locker. He said his grip was fine.
The throw, which would have beaten Dodgers catcher Russell Martin by about three steps, tailed right and came closer to Martin than to Howard's glove before bouncing into the guarding in front of the Phillies' dugout.
"Chan Ho [Park] made a good pitch, which we wanted in that situation,'' Utley said, adding that he got a good throw from Phillies third baseman Pedro Feliz, who started the play.
After the game, the first question to Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was about Utley's erratic throwing in the series. The questioner said it had looked erratic even when outs were being recorded.
"He can correct that,'' Manuel said. "Chase is better than that. Those mistakes that you make . . . that happens sometimes. Just because you made - two days in a row, he made one. I know it plays a part in a game, and so does he.''
Manuel immediately added, "I've got a lot of faith in him. He's the one guy in the world that will work on it and correct. It's Chase Utley.''
"Errors are part of the game and strikeouts and all that stuff,'' said Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who added about Utley: "I mean, I'd certainly like to have his problems. He's pretty damned special.''
Of Utley's errors, Jimmy Rollins said, "He's done it before, but he usually makes the correction later on in the game if he gets a chance or definitely by the next day. It's not going to happen again. If something is a little bit off, he'll make the correction.''
Utley said his error the day before was not similar to this one. "I forced it,'' he said, adding that he didn't really think he had a shot to turn the Game 1 double play after the ball had stuck in Rollins' glove for a second. His fifth-inning throw ended up in the Phillies' dugout, opening the floodgates for a three-run inning. That one, the Phillies survived to win, 8-6.
"Today was a different story,'' Utley said.
Contact staff writer Mike Jensen at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com.
