No Ryan Howard.
No Chase Utley.
That's the cold, hard reality staring down the Phillies as the clock ticks toward opening day.
It's easy to suggest that general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. should have implemented a better backup plan in November and December when he knew that first baseman Ryan Howard was going to miss a good chunk of the season while recovering from Achilles tendon surgery.
Amaro and the Phillies also knew that their franchise second baseman had "bad knees." Amaro said last September and again after the team's playoff loss in October that Utley's degenerative knee condition was not going away - and Amaro could not have been more correct.
So why didn't Amaro do more when the free-agent market was open for business and trades were not restricted by any sort of deadline?
The truth is that Amaro tried to do what he could to make the team better offensively by dealing for Ty Wigginton, a utility infielder with decent power, and signing free agents Jim Thome and Laynce Nix, two other men best known for their ability to drive the ball out of the park.
Go back and look at the list of free agents from this offseason and try to find one that the Phillies could have signed that would have protected them against this worst-case scenario that has developed in this spring training.
Some would argue - and have, via e-mail - that the Phillies were foolish for trading the versatile Wilson Valdez to Cincinnati for Jeremy Horst, a lefty who was shipped out of big-league camp Tuesday. The Phillies' thinking was that Michael Martinez could handle that utility infielder role and that you really don't need two guys with such similar games. They opted for the younger and cheaper of the two.
The fact that Martinez fractured a bone in his right foot when he was hit by a pitch during the seventh inning of Tuesday's game does not make the Phillies management wrong about the decision. It does mean they've had a lot of rotten luck this spring.
And still, this season is not going to turn on whether Valdez or Martinez is around.
The most relevant issue is how the Phillies should proceed without Utley.
Amaro exercised a staunch vote of confidence for Freddy Galvis as his starting second baseman Monday after pronouncing Utley "doubtful" for the April 5 opener in Pittsburgh.
Multiple baseball scouts said even before the Utley and Martinez news broke that the Phillies have been looking for help in the infield. One scout suggested, however, that the search for a better replacement than Galvis at second base would be difficult.
Some of the names being floated as potential players the Phillies could acquire in trades: Blake DeWitt from the Cubs, Maicer Izturis from the Angels, Chris Getz from the Royals, and Mike Aviles from the Red Sox.
None of the above is as good as Utley was even a year ago when he had his career-worst season.
The smartest solution is to see what Galvis can do and adjust accordingly. The 22-year-old switch hitter will have his ups and downs as he did Tuesday when he struck out twice and hit into a double play before lining an RBI triple off reliever Jim Johnson that broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the seventh inning.
"You don't see too many switch hitters who are good breaking-ball hitters, and he is no exception," a National League scout said of Galvis.
His two strikeouts Tuesday were on breaking balls.
Regardless of who replaces Utley at second and Howard at first, the days when the Phillies had one of the best lineups in baseball are gone. Halladay joined a team with a powerful offense in 2010, and now he's on a team that needs its three aces to be every bit as good as they were a year ago.
Halladay insisted it was not the powerful offense that attracted him so much to Philadelphia.
"I was coming to a competitive team," he said. "I feel like that's what we still have. I felt like when I was in Toronto if we lost two of our major guys we would have had a hard time overcoming that. I came here because it's a different situation and we've seen it the last five years.
"They overcome, and Ruben is aggressive. When things need to be done, they get done and that's why I'm here. I wanted to be on a team that was able to do that and I feel like we still are."
Contact Bob Brookover at bbrookover@phillynews.com or follow on Twitter @brookob.
