Amaro insists he’s not deceiving fans, media

A day after Utley spoke at length to reporters for the first time in more than a month about his problematic left knee, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. wanted to clear the air about how the organization has been perceived in disseminating information about the injury and its treatment.

“I’ve seen a couple of things out there that we’re trying to deceive people,” Amaro said to six beat writers. “Listen, we’re not trying to make people think that we’re giving them false information at all. We’re trying to be as respectful to some of our players as we can possibly be. And at the same time, we’re trying to give you as much information as we can. We don’t have anything to gain from hiding information from you guys. … So much stuff gets thrown out there that is frankly a lot of BS.”

(checks around for wandering NY Times sportswriter)

...“I told you, it doesn’t take a genius,” Amaro said. “We’re not stocked full of middle infielders right now. I mean, I don’t look particularly intelligent for trading Wilson Valdez. If we have Wilson Valdez right now, we wouldn’t have a need. But, we did. And we’ll deal with it.”

Since Amaro was adamant that he was being honest, the writers pushed him to give a general timeline for Utley’s return. He didn’t budge.

“We just don’t know when these guys are going to be back,” he said. “We have no idea when [Ryan] Howard’s going to be healthy. We have no idea when Chase is going to be healthy. He feels he’s making progress. But none of us, not our doctors, not me, not Chase, I don’t think anybody knows exactly how much, how quickly he’s going to progress to the point where he’s doing baseball activities.