By Andrew Porter

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Chase Utley has just nine hits in 25 games to start the season. His .103 batting average is the lowest in baseball, just below some familiar names like Jimmy Rollins (.167), Jayson Werth (.176), and Marlon Byrd (.181).

After a hot spring following his all-star 2014 season, fans are wondering if the 36-year-old second baseman is just unlucky early on, or is he officially declining?

“Well, if the fans have been watching how he’s gotten to .100 it is pretty astonishing,” Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. told the 94WIP Morning Show during his weekly phone interview on Tuesday. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, the run of horrendous luck that he’s run into. He had a couple of balls, one right on the screws. Guy dives, making a diving play on him. He hits another line-drive right at the first baseman, all for not. He’s hitting the ball hard, he’s just literally the unluckiest person on the planet.”

Listen: Ruben Amaro Jr. on the 94WIP Morning Show

Luck, or lack thereof, has definitely played a role in Utley’s putrid start.

Utley’s BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is .087, a nearly impossible number. According to crashburnalley.com, the lowest BABIP among hitters that have qualified for the batting title over the last 35 years is Ted Simmons’ .200 in 1981.

“Listen, anytime a guy is so deeply below where he typically is after a month of the season it’s astonishing,” Amaro said. “But, what is even more astonishing is how he got there. He hit the ball hard two-to-three times a night or day and cannot get a hit. We gotta start praying for him a little bit. The baseball Gods have not been good to him.”

Amaro says Utley is handling his early season struggles like a pro and hopes he’ll turn it around.

“Well there’s no question he’s an introvert and I’m sure it’s eating at him,” Amaro said. “Any human being would have to have an effect them, one way or another. But he keeps going about his business the same, he just keeps grinding it out. He’s been in the game a long time, he realizes that eventually things will level out or even out. Listen, it’s like historical what his BABIP is, I mean batting average of balls in play. And the fact of the matter is, if he just keeps hitting the ball hard somewhere they’ll start falling at some point.”