Utley was similarly optimistic one year ago when he reported to camp, but that optimism vanished within a couple of weeks as his knee condition flared up in response to the increased intensity of his baseball workouts. The rest of the story is well known. Utley visited a new specialist in Arizona, who introduced him to a new program, one that Utley says left him feeling much better than the season before. The second baseman missed the first three months of the season. This year, though, he never stopped doing baseball workouts in the offseason, and he focused on distributing strength more evenly through his body, two key differences that he hopes will enable him to be on the field when the Grapefruit League schedule begins a week from Saturday.