I’ve found it kind of odd that so far in this 2012 season, Roy Oswalt has not been on a roster. It’s not because he can’t pitch anymore. Yes, he does have some injury concerns with that troublesome back, but he’d still be on of the better starters on most staffs.

It has to be that he just wants too much money right now. There are rumors of interested teams, including the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies, but nothing has come of it yet.

And according to Jon Heyman of CNNSI.com, you can add another team to the list of interested parties: The Baltimore Orioles.

“Roy oswalt on ‪#orioles‬ radar. ‪#redsox‬ ‪#phillies‬ ‪#rangers‬ others involved,” Heyman tweets.

No one thought the Orioles would have Oswalt on their radar back in spring training because the Orioles weren’t on anyone’s radar. Now that they are off to this hot start in an incredibly tough division, they could be looking to add troops for their playoff push.

If you’re like me, you’ve been holding on to Michael Morse in your fantasy baseball league, waiting for him to come off the DL. He was shut down on April 11th with a torn lat muscle. Sounds painful.

But, according to manager Davey Johnson, Morse will “for sure” be activated by June 8th for their series against the Boston Red Sox.

“There’s some people thinking it might be accelerated ahead of that,” Johnson added. “We’ll see on Friday how he comes out of that game.”

He’s going to start making his rehab starts this week. Micah’s fantasy team could use him in the lineup. Let’s get going here.

Ike Davis is considered to be one of the top young players in the New York Mets organization. The first baseman is being counted on to be one of the centerpieces of the franchise moving forward.

Except that he’s been awful this year. He’s got 5 HR’s while hitting .160. Yep, .160. He makes Freddie Galvis look like Ty Cobb.

So, because he’s so young, the next question is: Will he get sent down to Triple A?

“Terry Collins was not saying Ike is going to minors, but he was not as dismissive of possibility either,” tweets Adam Rubin of ESPN.

Ok, so it sounds like it’s on the table. Davis needs to get hot pretty quickly, or he could be sent down when Jason Bay comes off the DL in early June. No pressure though.

While the offense of the Philadelphia Phillies has picked it up a bit as of late (thanks, Chooch), it’s still hardly a well-oiled machine. It’s not the one-run debacle that it was earlier this season, but they could use help.

And according to Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com, that help could be on the way in June.

He says that there is “a growing feeling” that Ryan Howard (Achilles) and Chase Utley (knee) could re-join the team in June. Howard is considered the first to come back and his return is more certain. Utley just began fielding ground balls and he hasn’t had a chance to see how his knee will react to the increased activity.

Neither player has a timetable for his return.

The Phillies are in the basement of the NL East, but are currently riding a six-game winning streak. Who knows what Howard and Utley will even be when they come back, but it could at least help get other guys to their proper spots in the lineup.

Did you miss the battle between Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel and home plate umpire Bob Davidson this week? It was pretty great. Manuel got upset that Davidson got in Brian Schneider’s way as he tried to grab strike three in the dirt. Schneider couldn’t get the ball and the dude was safe at first after striking out.

Davidson screamed into the dugout, “you think I wanted to block his ass?”

Not sure exactly what Charlie said back, but he got tossed and didn’t care for it. The video is here:

After the expletive-laden battle was over, MLB decided that both guys should have a seat for a game. You see players and managers get suspended all the time, but umpires? And better yet, they said Davidson’s suspension was for “repeated violations.” Wow, how about that?

From the press release:

Umpire Bob Davidson has received a one-game suspension for his repeated violations of the Office of the Commissioner’s standards for situation handling, Major League Baseball announced today.

Davidson’s suspension is to be served tonight, when his crew will work the Minnesota Twins-Milwaukee Brewers game at Miller Park. A Minor League call-up umpire will fill Davidson’s spot in tonight’s game.

This guy must be one hell of an umpire to not just get fired. If he’s constantly screwing up, couldn’t they just find someone else to judge whether the little white ball went over the plate or not?

The 2012 season has not been too good to the Philadelphia Phillies. They’ve been in last place most of the season and just got their first three-game winning streak of the season on Tuesday. Not good for a team with a huge payroll and World Series aspirations.

Now, the team gets some more good news. One of their reliable starting pitchers (the only part of this team that has been solid this year), Vance Worley, has been placed on the 15-day DL with elbow inflammation.

Anyone see Tommy John in the future?

Not saying that will happen, but elbow trouble isn’t good. GM Ruben Amaro says that they will know more about the inflammation some time on Wednesday. Can’t wait to hear that report.

The designation is retroactive to May 12, but that doesn’t mean he’ll come off of the DL as scheduled.

Phillies fans: Hold your breath. This team can’t afford to take on more water.

Whoops! When Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter named Jim Johnson as the team’s closer, we made light of it, saying basically “who the hell cares?”

Boy, was OTR wrong…again (happens all the time, we’re used to it around here).

While it may not last forever, right now Johnson is smoking hot. He closed out the New York Yankees tonight and now has 12 saves on the year, tied for first in MLB. He has an absolutely insane ERA of 0.54. 0.54!

This is coming from a guy who had an ERA well over six in spring training. In our defense, it wasn’t like Buck Showalter was thrilled to name him as his closer at the time.

But, kudos to Johnson and shame on OTR (for now). This guy is pitching his ass off and could develop into one of the best closers in the league. Unless he doesn’t, because then he won’t.

Ken Rosenthal’s report makes it clear that no trade is immediate, nor is one likely. But, he says that the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies have discussed possible trades including Cole Hamels and Shane Victorino.

It sounds ridiculous, but not when you consider that the Phillies are in last place in the NL East and continue to find ways to lose games and fall farther behind.

Both are in the last year’s of their contracts and if the Phillies don’t think they can resign them, they are likely trade bait. The Phils don’t want to bail on the season before Chase Utley and Ryan Howard come back, but at some point, they’ll have to face reality.

“My job is to keep all lines of communication open, for the good of the club today and tomorrow,” GM Ruben Amaro said. “I can’t shut any doors down. You try to be creative. And there are a lot of creative GMs out there who have different goals.”

I would think Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee would make more sense to move, considering the team needs to get younger and replenish the farm system. We’ll see what happens, right now this is probably a tire-kicking on behalf of the Jays.

The Washington Nationals are having a good-news/bad-news type of day. The bad news is that they obviously had to place Jayson “I hate all Philadelphia fans and will firebomb that city when my wrist is healthy” Werth on the disabled list. You’ll remember that he broke his same troublesome wrist on Sunday night against the Phillies.

Werth is likely to miss some 6-12 weeks (depending on which reports you believe), so whether he’s on the 15-day DL, 60-day DL, 135-week DL….it doesn’t matter. Cut him from your fantasy baseball team.

But, the Nationals do get some good news here. 3B Ryan Zimmerman will be activated off the DL, so his bat will be a welcomed addition.

We now wait to hear when Zimmerman will go back on the DL, which should be any time soon.

On Sunday night, Philadelphia Phillies stud Cole Hamels mowed down the Washington Nationals both literally and figuratively. He gave up just one run through eight innings, and also made sure he plunked Bryce Harper in the first inning.

That wasn’t seemingly a big deal, except that he admitted after the game that he did it on purpose.

“I was trying to hit him,” Hamels said. “I’m not going to deny it. That’s just — you know what, it’s something that I grew up watching, that’s what happened, so I’m just trying to continue the old baseball — I think some people kind of get away from it. I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was really, really small and you didn’t say anything just because that’s the way baseball is. Sometimes the league is protecting certain players and making it not that old-school, prestigious way of baseball.”

What I still don’t get is why. Because Harper is good? Because he’s young? Because he’s getting a lot of hype? Are any of those reasons to intentionally pop someone?

Well, you can put Nationals GM Mike Rizzo down as not having cared for it.

“Players take care of themselves,” Rizzo said. “I’ve never seen a more classless, gutless chicken [bleep] act in my 30 years in baseball.

“Cole Hamels says he’s old school? He’s the polar opposite of old school. He’s fake tough. He thinks he’s going to intimidate us after hitting our 19-year-old rookie who’s eight games into the big leagues? He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

Rizzo said that Hamels should be suspended.

“With all the bounty [stuff] going on in professional football, the commissioner better act with a purpose on this thing,” Rizzo said. “Players have a way of monitoring themselves. We’re not here to hit people and hurt people.

“He thinks he’s sending a message to us of being a tough guy. He’s sending the polar opposite message. He says he’s being honest; well, I’m being honest. It was a gutless chicken [bleep] [bleeping] act. That was a fake-tough act. No one has ever accused Cole Hamels of being old school.”

There was certainly a brand-new intensity in the Nationals-Phillies rivalry this weekend, but Rizzo says that intentional beanings are a different story.

“This goes beyond rivalry and all that stuff,” Rizzo said. “This points to, you take the youngest guy in baseball. He’s never done a thing. And then Hamels patted himself on the back. Harper’s old school. Hitting him on the back, that ain’t old school. That’s [bleeping] chicken [bleep].”

The Washington Nationals have been pretty damn excited lately and they’ve had good reason to be. They are off to an 18-10 start and own first place in the NL East.

However, they’re taking on a bit of water. 3B Ryan Zimmerman is already hurt, as is Michael Morse, who was supposed to the be the cleanup hitter. Well, now you can add another injury to that list.

Outfielder Jayson Werth dove for a ball Sunday night and tore up his left wrist. And, according to Amanda Comack of the Washington Times, it’s busted.

“Broken left wrist for Jayson Werth. He’ll be out “a while.” Will see specialist tomorrow, consulting w/Mayo Clinic surgeon,” she tweets.

“It’s a clean break,” manager Davey Johnson said. “He’s going to be out for a while.”

Supposedly at least six weeks. That’s a blow to a young team trying to make headway in the division for the first time in…ever.

“All of a sudden we seem to be getting a little more healthy and then boom, another one of our main guys goes down,” Johnson said. “We’ve dealt with it before we’ll deal with it again. We’re not alone. It seems like it’s rampant right now. It’s a tough blow.”

Guess we can kill any idea of Bryce Harper getting sent back down.

Still, for Werth, this is a big issue. He busted his same left wrist back in 2005 with the Dodgers and it was a career-threatening injury. Hopefully, this won’t be similar.

I can’t think of much worse news for the New York Yankees. On Thursday night, closer Mariano Rivera was in the outfield during batting practice before their game. That’s all well and great until he collapsed in a heap holding his knee and had to be carted off the field.

The end result? A torn ACL.

“Girardi said preliminary report on MRI showed Rivera has a torn ACL. Will go back to New York,” tweets David Waldstein (no idea who that is).

Of course, a torn ACL means that he will be out for the year. But, the bigger question is: Is Mariano done?

According to Waldstein, even Mariano thinks he could be done.

“[F]ighting back tears, Mariano Rivera said he didn’t know if he would ever pitch again,” he tweeted.

It’s not crazy to think that he’s done for good. He’s 42-years old and we’ve been wondering when the end will be for him for about eight years. It takes a year to recover from an ACL and he wouldn’t be himself until probably 2014. But, at that point, what would “be himself?”

I’d have to think that Mariano is done.

Look for either David Robertson or Rafael Soriano to take over closing duties for the Yanks.

A couple days ago Detroit Tigers OF Delmon Young had a little incident that involved a physical skirmish, booze and racism. Needless to say, the Tigers and MLB didn’t appreciate it.

Young was placed on the restricted list and, according to Danny Knobler, will be re-evaluated on Monday.

“Dombrowski says if Delmon is cleared by MLB evaluation process, he will play for the Tigers, potentially as soon as Tuesday,” Knobler tweets.

Young got insanely hammered in NYC one night and went off on a pan handler, screaming “f*cking Jews!” Yeah, that didn’t sit well with a lot of people. He was actually so bombed that they had to take him to the hospital to detox. Experienced drinkers know that it takes a lot of booze to need a hospital visit.

Good news, Yankees fans! Remember how excited you were when you sent Jesus Montero and others to the Seattle Mariners for Michael Pineda? Yeah, unless you run into him in a bar or restaurant, you won’t be seeing him for quite a while.

Pineda developed arm issues and the diagnosis is pretty bad. According to Yankees blogger Mark Feinsand, it’s a torn labrum and he’ll miss the entire 2012 season.

“Pineda has a tear in his labrum. Arthroscopic surgery scheduled for next Tuesday,” he tweets.

It’s officially an “anterior labral tear” and it unofficially sucks for the Yankees, who could have used his arm this season.

The Philadelphia Phillies might have one of the worst lineups in all of baseball. Check that, they do have one of the worst lineups in all of baseball. I don’t even have the stats in front of me, but I’ve learned enough through empirical data.

Many fans in Philly can’t wait for the return of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, both of whom are out with nasty injuries. “Once we get Utley and Howard back, we’ll be great again!” Not true at all, but whatever. Utley has what appears to be degenerative conditions in both knees (although he says the one that was hurt last year is fine now) and Howard tore his Achilles tendon, so who the hell even knows what the Phils will get out of them when they are cleared to play.

But, if you’re one of the many Philly fans who thinks that they just need to get these guys healthy to get back on the World Series track, then I have some sort of good news. According to Jim Salisbury, Utley took early batting practice today in Arizona.

“Utley took early BP. Manuel said his legs look stronger. No timetable. Utley to chat w reporters later,” Salisbury tweets.

Well, I guess it’s better than him not taking batting practice, but it hardly signals his return. And let’s be clear again: you have no idea what he is going to be when he comes back. He could just be an average hitter who isn’t as good on defense as Freddy Galvis.

The Philadelphia Phillies just keep rolling. It’s not enough that they struggle to even score one run against poor pitchers, but now they keep getting good news. First, we found out that Cliff Lee had to go on the 15-day DL with a side strain. Now? The one guy they have who can hit the baseball has a sore shoulder and will miss Monday night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, according to Jim Salisbury.

“Pence out of lineup w sore L shoulder, Manuel says. He banged into wall in SF a week ago,” he tweets.

Awesome.

We don’t know the severity of the injury right now, but if Pence needs a DL stint, the Phillies should just immediately become sellers and have a fire sale. This season is going to be a complete waste as it is, let alone losing a guy of Pence’s caliber.

John Mayberry, Jr. will take Pence’s place in right field, and stink up the joint when he steps in the batter’s box.

The Philadelphia Phillies are off to a rough start. They are hovering around .500 while the rest of the division (minus the Marlins of course) is thriving. Not only that, their offense is absolutely butt awful.

So, they’ll need that starting pitching, huh? Of course they will! Well, they better hope some other people step up, because Cliff Lee isn’t going to be able to help for the next 15 days. That’s right, he was placed on the DL with an oblique strain.

Hooray?

The good thing is that it’s not tough to replace a guy with a 1.96 ERA who is borderline unhittable at times. Not when you have Kyle Kendrick it isn’t. The journeyman bullpen/spot starter should be a right-handed Cliff Lee if all goes according to plan.

In all honesty, I’m not sure I see the Phillies making the playoffs this year.

The San Francisco Giants are full of great young pitching, which is all well and good. It’s one of the best situations you can be in, until it’s time to pay them. They just recently doled out a huge contract to Matt Cain, and now it’s Madison Bumgarner’s turn.

According to SFX, they extended Bumgarner with a five-year, $35 million contract.

“Congratulations to Madison Bumgarner on his 5-year $35 million extension with the Giants!,” SFX tweets.

This is the biggest contract ever given to someone with just one-plus year of service. And it will get bumped to $40 million if he qualifies for Super Two status. This new extension also has options for 2018 and 2019 and even gives him a limited no-trade clause. He can name eight teams annually that he can’t be traded to.

The 22-year old had a 3.21 ERA last season and looks to be a stud in the making.

Since signing a mega-deal with the Boston Red Sox last offseason, Carl Crawford has been a waste of space. He did next to nothing last year, and now is hurt so far this season. Crawford underwent wrist surgery in January and then had a setback with elbow soreness.

So yeah, he’s not helping the Red Sox again so far this year. But, according to manager Bobby Valentine, Crawford is set to see action in an extended spring training game in Florida on Tuesday.

“He’d like to play at least by Tuesday,” Valentine said.

Crawford’s biggest problem right now is throwing the baseball, which some experts think is an important aspect of playing the outfield.

“He’s taken a lot of batting practice,” Valentine said. “He might have even been part of the inspiration for our play yesterday. He was taking it during the game in the cage. The sound was so loud that I think it inspired some of our guys to hit the ball hard. He was really making a loud noise in that batting cage.”

The Boston Red Sox are aware of what life is like without Jacoby Ellsbury. In 2010, he was on the DL almost all year, but bounced back to have an MVP-like 2011. Well, it’s good that they are used to living without him, because he won’t be playing baseball any time soon.

Tampa Bay Rays infielder Reid Brignac landed on Ellsbury during the Red Sox home opener while throwing the ball to first. Ellsbury has a subluxed shoulder and will be out probably until the All-Star break.

The Red Sox not only lose their leadoff man, but it’s another dagger to the outfield. As it is, the multi-, multi-, multi-million dollar man Carl Crawford is just not getting in some rehab games.

The Sox will recall Che-Hsuan Lin from AAA Pawtucket and use guys like Cody Ross and Ryan Sweeney to plug the gaps until Ellsbury can get healthy. Even if no one is exactly sure when that will be right now.

It doesn’t take long for things to go south for the New York Mets. They started out 4-0 and seemed poised to win all 162 games this season. But, while it’s still very, very possible, it’s going to be much more difficult now that David Wright will have to sit down for a bit.

Monday night, Wright dove back to a bag and messed up his pinkie finger. And according to Andy McCullough of the Newark Star-Ledger, the finger is busted.

“David Wright has a small fracture in his pinkie. No surgery. Will wear a splint. Timetable is unclear right now,” McCullough tweets.

While there is definitely a crack in the pinkie, Wright is hoping that he doesn’t have to hit the DL.

“No one ever really wants to go on the DL. Hopefully, that’s not the case this time,” Wright said.

As of now, Wright is out indefinitely and we’ll have to see what the team plans to do with him. Obviously, not letting the finger heal properly this early in the season (with an undefeated season on the line) is a bad idea.

UPDATE: Sadly, the Mets lost. So there goes the undefeated season.

As you surely have heard by now, the Miami Marlins have suspended manager Ozzie Guillen for five games for comments he made recently to Time magazine. Guillen had nice words for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and many people didn’t care for that.

“I respect Fidel Castro,” Guillen said in the article. “You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that son of a bitch is still there.”

Guillen apologized in a press conference, but really, who cares? Who cares about the apology when you spoke from your heart originally? And to take it a step farther, who cares about your opinions on Castro? Everyone has to get all outraged like the world shifts on comments from a baseball manager.

Ozzie said that he “betrayed a Latin community” and that he was talking to “ask for forgiveness with my heart in my hand.”

Guillen didn’t say he was misquoted, but said that he was speaking in Spanish and that “the translation to English was a bit confusing.”

Uh huh. That makes perfect sense, and what a convenient excuse. And he spoke in Spanish and English in this apology conference thing too. If the confusion regarding your original comments was due to translation issues, maybe we should just stick with one language?

Anyway, Guillen continued with his “apology” (the kind where it’s okay that he expressed something he really felt, but now is “apologizing” because people got pissed off and not because he didn’t mean it).

“Politics has nothing to do with sports,” Guillen said, making an earth-shattering statement that will surely be news to many.

“This is the biggest mistake so far in my life,” he said. “I’m very, very, very sorry,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to make it better.”

“I live in Miami, my family is in Miami,” he said. “I will do everything in my power…to help this community like I always do. I’m sitting here very embarrassed and very sad.”

“I’m gonna be a Miami guy for the rest of my life,” Guillen said. “I want to walk in the street with my head up and not feel as bad as I feel right now.”

We just don’t get it on a variety of levels. Sure, there are a good deal of people living in the Miami area who have directly felt the destruction of Fidel Castro. But, why do you care that the local baseball manager likes him? Or respects him? Or whatever? How does his opinion affect your life? It doesn’t.

And now cue the people that say, “what if he said Hitler?!” Well, first of all, he didn’t. So you can cram that argument. Secondly, what if he did? We’d have to all act outraged and demand an “apology,” when none of this matters anyway. If he said he liked Hitler, the sun would come up tomorrow. If he said he liked Hitler, and then he apologized, it’s not like his Hitler comments started riots across the country and then his apology quelled them. Nope, nothing would come of any of it.

Sure, the Marlins did the right thing by suspending him because they are still trying to run a business. They had to do it because of the level of outrage from their paying customers. They have a brand new stadium they are trying to fill. But, if people would just use their heads and think about how these things affect their life, there would be no outrage.

We’re just so tired of everyone having to be outraged about stupid crap coming from inconsequential people as though any of it means anything. Meanwhile, we have people trying to limit access to things like contraception and porn, but we’re worried what a baseball manager says about a dictator. Makes sense.

Talk about a slow news day. File this one under: No One Gives a Crap. The closer situation for the Baltimore Orioles is about as interesting to sports fans as women’s rights are to Republicans.

Manager Buck Showalter has finally ended all the speculation that has kept most of America awake at night since February. Jim Johnson is his closer, MASNSports.com’s Roch Kubatko confirms.

“Showalter confirms Jim Johnson as closer,” Kubatko tweets.

Then it’s confirmed.

Johnson had a 6.75 ERA this spring and yet is still the best option for the Orioles. The Orioles, who are in the same division with the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays, and who stink at baseball. No matter what type of fantasy baseball league you play in, do not pick up Johnson. He was terrible this spring, and you actually have to have the lead at the end of games to get a save.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw is one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball. Ok, forget “young” pitchers, he’s one of the best in MLB period. The guy won the NL Cy Young award last year (so far in his career, the AL Cy Young award has eluded him).

Well, today’s start could derail his entire season, even if he recovers from the flu that bit him, which he probably will.

Kershaw exited today’s start, according to Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, due to the stomach flu.

“Clayton Kershaw has a stomach flu,” Hernandez tweets, basically repeating what I just typed.

Kershaw pitched three scoreless innings and even hit a double in his only at-bat. They pinch hit for him in the fourth, ending his day.

Apparently, he had to beg just to even get the start due to his illness. Knowing that, we’re pretty impressed that he even got through three innings. Fantasy owners won’t be happy with his day though, and he should be dropped in all league formats.

The Boston Red Sox traded for Oakland A’s closer Andrew Bailey this offseason to replace the departed Jonathan Papelbon, who signed a big-money deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. However, it looks like they’ll have to wait a little bit before they see their closer in action.

According to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, Baily will see a specialist to see if he needs to have surgery on his ailing thumb.

“#RedSox closer Andrew Bailey will be in Cleveland on Tuesday to get a second opinion on his injured right thumb,” Abraham tweets.

Bailey had the thumb checked out in Boston and Abraham heard that the news “was not good.” There is no telling just how long he could be out of action if he indeed needs to go under the knife. So yeah, don’t draft him high in your fantasy baseball draft.

Mark Melancon and Alfredo Aceves would most likely get shots at closing duties while they wait for Bailey to come back.

Everyone thought that the New York Yankees pulled off something of a coup this offseason when they traded for a promising pitcher named Michael Pineda from the Seattle Mariners. Pineda was white hot for the Mariners for most of last season before tailing off towards the end. Still, the Yankees acquired the 23-year old in exchange for catcher Jesus Montero, who sucks at catching.

After getting rid of A.J. Burnett (thank god), Pineda was penciled in towards the middle of the rotation. But now, he may be penciled out, according to Andrew Marchand of ESPNNewYork.com.

“To answer some questions: I think there is a better chance than not that Pineda is in rotation, but it is not certain yet,” Marchand tweets.

Yikes! The Yankees haven’t made a big deal about it, but apparently his velocity is down. Some are speculating that he may begin the season in the minors to get himself right.

If that’s the case, this is not what the Yankees envisioned when they made the move. But, if a stint in the minors is what he needs and he comes back to early-2011 form, then all will be right with the world.

There has been a ton of speculation about Philadelphia Phillies 2B Chase Utley. He’s got chronic knee conditions (not a specific injury, mind you) and he hasn’t done much of anything all spring training in terms of doing baseball stuff.

So what’s wrong? How bad are his knees? Will he play in 2012? Is he going to have surgery? Will he just hang ‘em up?

Well, Chase spoke to the media on Sunday, and according to Ken Rosenthal of Foxsports.com, Utley says he’ll play this season and won’t have surgery.

“Utley: No surgery. No retirement. Won’t be ready for opener. Visited new specialist. Working on strengthening areas around knees. #Phillies,” Rosenthal tweets.

We’ll see what happens with him this year, as this was a condition that kept him out of a significant portion of last season. It remains to be seen what he’ll even be when/if he does return.

Phillies fans better hope to fall in love with Freddie Galvis quickly.

As a Philadelphia Phillies fan who reads this story, all I can say is a big “phewww!” At one point this offseason, there was reportedly a four-year, $44 million contract on the table for Ryan Madson, who just came off a great year of closing for the Phillies.

Then, all of a sudden, they pulled the offer and within a day or so, Jonathan Papelbon was the closer in Philadelphia.

Madson bounced around from visit to visit with other MLB teams. He never got close to getting another offer like he got from the Phils, and he ended up signing with the Cincinnati Reds for $8.5 million for the 2012 season.

That money is in the toilet now.

Madson is now out for the year as he needs Tommy John surgery to fix his elbow (where else can Tommy John surgery fix a ligament?). The ligament in his elbow was off the bone, according to John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

“Tommy John for Madson. Ligament was torn off the bone. #reds,” he tweets.

Yikes. This is awful news for Madson, and worse news for the Reds, who now have to scramble to find a closer on their roster. Sean Marshall? Can Aroldis Chapman get his act together and use those fireballs for good and not evil?

Regardless, with all of the problems the Phillies have had this spring, fans have to be glad that they didn’t keep Madson.

Do you remember when Joba Chamberlain first came up and starting pitching well? Remember when he was about to have his first start and ESPN would break into all sorts of programs that he was warming up or took a piss in the dugout bathroom?

Yeah, that was a long time ago. Now, not many people seem to care what he’s up to. But, in case you do, you’ll be delighted to know that he’s going to miss the 2012 season with an open ankle dislocation. He was playing with his five-year old (couldn’t leave him with grandma) on one of those bouncy things, and he busted his ankle.

“Joba is in St. Joseph’s Hospital right now,” GM Brian Cashman said Friday morning. “From what we understand he was playing with his son at one of those kid places where you jump around on trampolines. While he was enjoying time with his son under those circumstances, he suffered a very significant injury, an open dislocation to his right ankle. He underwent a surgical procedure last night. He will be at St. Joseph’s for a number of days. I don’t have a time frame for his return.”

As it is, Joba is returning from Tommy John surgery. So, as if this ankle injury wasn’t bad enough, he’s got the Tommy John thing going for him too.

Cashman said “I would like to think it is not,” when asked if this injury was career threatening.

It would seem though, that his Yankees career is over. He won’t pitch this year and is arbitration eligible for the final time this year.

The Kansas City Royals seem to be in a bind every season as year in and and year out, it turns out that they don’t really have many players who excel at the game of baseball. It’s a true story, just look at the standings from…any time that isn’t in the 80′s.

So when they actually have a guy who is decent at throwing, hitting or catching a baseball, they can’t afford to have said player get injured. And that’s exactly what has happened here.

Joakim Soria, their closer whose name always seems to come up at the trade deadline every year, has a bum elbow. And it was feared that he would need Tommy John surgery, and that fear has been realized. Soria will undergo the surgery today and miss the rest of the season.

Soria now hopes to be ready for the start of the 2013 season.

Look for Jonathan Broxton or Greg Holland to replace Soria as the closer.