Amaro

The Phillies made 15 more selections in Tuesday's portion of this year's first-year player draft, and nobody has management more intrigued than Dylan Cozens, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound outfielder out of Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Ariz. Cozens, the son of a former NFL draft pick, worked out for the Phillies on Saturday and sprayed the ball all over Citizens Bank Park, including 10 home runs in about 70 swings. "He is really interesting," Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said.

Someday, an athlete is going to consider getting a cortisone injection in or near a weight-bearing joint, as Ryan Howard did before blowing out his Achilles tendon last fall. We all can agree on that, right? Someday, somewhere, there will be a player trying to get back on the field and deciding whether to risk his long-term health. He will be consulting with doctors and team officials, and they all will try to make the smartest possible decision. That is why the article in Sunday's Inquirer about the connection between cortisone shots and ligament tears was important.

The Houston Astros arrive in Philadelphia on Monday as a team to watch only if you're wondering how all the young talent they have acquired from the Phillies in recent years is doing. If the Phillies do not begin a turnaround from their dreadful start soon, more and more people are going to look at the young, developing players who were used to acquire Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Hunter Pence and wonder if standing pat (no Gillick pun intended) in some instances would not have been the more prudent decision.

Even the off days are difficult ones for the Phillies right now. Instead of rest and relaxation, the Phillies had to do some roster juggling Thursday as they prepared for the start of Friday's three-game series against the San Diego Padres. Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said the team is "probably going to make some changes over the next few days," but he refused to comment on the Twitter revelation from recently demoted reliever Michael Schwimer that the team has promoted infielder Hector Luna and pitchers Jake Diekman and Raul Valdes from triple-A Lehigh Valley.

EVEN THE OFF days are difficult ones for the Phillies right now. Instead of rest and relaxation, the Phillies had to do some roster juggling Thursday as they prepared for the start of Friday's three-game series against the San Diego Padres. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said the team is "probably going to make some changes over the next few days," but he refused to comment on the Twitter revelation from recently demoted reliever Michael Schwimer that the team has promoted infielder Hector Luna and pitchers Jake Diekman and Raul Valdes from Triple A Lehigh Valley.

I KNOW THAT I'm one of the few people outside of the Phillies front office who believes that general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. played his hand wrong. This isn't where anyone expected the Phillies to be - not 11-12 and a rung out of the cellar in the National League East. But as frustrating as things presently are, I look at how the Phillies arrived here, and I ask myself, what could Amaro have realistically done differently? I'll get hundreds of suggestions, and if change in real-life Major League Baseball were as easy as it is in Fantasy League Baseball or arm-chair general managing, 99 percent of them would be right.

Following a 10-game road trip, the Phillies had a day off on Thursday, but it was still a busy day in the medical department. Lefthander Cliff Lee and righthander Michael Stutes both had MRIs. Phillies general manger Ruben Amaro Jr. says that Lee has a Grade 1 left external oblique strain. "That is kind of what we thought it would be," Amaro said before Friday's game at Citizens Bank Park against the Chicago Cubs. Amaro stressed that the Phillies don't know the timetable for Lee, who is eligible to come off the disabled list on May 4 when the Phillies open a weekend series in Washington.

If this season is anything like Ruben Amaro Jr.'s first three as Phillies general manager, there is going to come a time in July when he starts looking for help from another organization. You may not like the fact that the Phillies have failed to win a World Series since Amaro succeeded Hall of Famer Pat Gillick as the team's GM, but that does not change the reality that the current GM has significantly strengthened the team at the trade deadline every year since he took control.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Amid questions about a disconnected relationship between Chase Utley and the Phillies front office, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. spent 30 minutes Monday emphasizing that Utley was up front in detailing his health, and said that as recently as a week ago, both parties assumed he'd start the season on time. Amaro claimed there was no indication the team's plan for gradually working Utley into spring activities would fail until March 18. Until that point, Amaro publicly maintained that Utley would play on opening day even though the second baseman had not participated in any fielding drills.