Lead Him Off!
Yesterday's sixth double play of the season is to make even the biggest Austin Kearns fanboy [raises hand] start to doubt. He's on pace (yay! fun with paces!) for 65 on the season. Somewhere -- not in the Hall of Fame -- Jim Rice is quietly rooting.
Forget everything you know about Kearns and his expectations.
Just look at what he is, has been, and is doing.
He walks and smacks the occasional single. He hits the ball on the ground a lot, and is always a DP threat when there are runners on. He's basically the team's second best on-base guy.
What would you do with a guy with that profile? Bat him leadoff dammit! He gets on base for the guys below him. He's not especially fast, but he's hardly a base-clogger. With the pitcher ahead of him, he's going to have fewer opportunities to hit into DPs. Walks are always good, but sometimes -- in the middle of the order -- you need a guy to put the bat on the ball and drive those guys in, and that's not something I'm sure he's capable of right now. (FIRE LENNY!!!!)
Put him at the top of the order. Let Guzman hit second (he's driving the ball, but he'd bat left-handed most of the time and with Kearns on first after his walk, he'd have a bigger hole on the right side to drive the ball through). Zimmerman/Johnson, who cares? I know that's the grand messageboard debate now, but having the worse batter hit third actually makes sense according to some lineup theories.
Kearns
Guzman
Zimmerman
Johnson
Milledge
Pena
Belliard
PLod
Works for me. Same guys, different order. Maximizing the things they do well. Hey, why not? Nothing else is working lately.
Forget everything you know about Kearns and his expectations.
Just look at what he is, has been, and is doing.
He walks and smacks the occasional single. He hits the ball on the ground a lot, and is always a DP threat when there are runners on. He's basically the team's second best on-base guy.
What would you do with a guy with that profile? Bat him leadoff dammit! He gets on base for the guys below him. He's not especially fast, but he's hardly a base-clogger. With the pitcher ahead of him, he's going to have fewer opportunities to hit into DPs. Walks are always good, but sometimes -- in the middle of the order -- you need a guy to put the bat on the ball and drive those guys in, and that's not something I'm sure he's capable of right now. (FIRE LENNY!!!!)
Put him at the top of the order. Let Guzman hit second (he's driving the ball, but he'd bat left-handed most of the time and with Kearns on first after his walk, he'd have a bigger hole on the right side to drive the ball through). Zimmerman/Johnson, who cares? I know that's the grand messageboard debate now, but having the worse batter hit third actually makes sense according to some lineup theories.
Kearns
Guzman
Zimmerman
Johnson
Milledge
Pena
Belliard
PLod
Works for me. Same guys, different order. Maximizing the things they do well. Hey, why not? Nothing else is working lately.
posted by Chris Needham at
8:35 AM
11 Comments:
Why not have Nick hit 3rd and Zim 4th? Seems like we'd get a few more runs. And have the pitcher hit 7th while we're at it.
I hope they didn't hire the Centerplate people to administer Communion today. It'll take two hours to get your wafer.
By
Anonymous, at 4/17/2008 9:10 AM
I would hit the pitcher 8th and Belliard 9th. This maximizes the chances of having baserunners when the "boppers" come up.
I also would hit Johnson third and Zimmerman fourth, which maximizes the chances of having guys on base when one of the few guys able to get exctra base hits (Zimmerman) comes up.
By
John O'Connor, at 4/17/2008 9:18 AM
This is all deck chairs on the Titanic, gents!
By
Anonymous, at 4/17/2008 9:38 AM
Someone has to ground into double plays now that Schneider's gone. Guess Kearns drew the short straw...
And I do believe Centerplate will be involved in concessions during the Pope's visit to Nationals Park today. From what I read, there will be coffee and pastry type of food sales in the park before mass begins at 10:00, and then after the mass is over the full range of ballpark concessions will be available. But consider this: All attendees have to be in the park several hours before mass begins. Many started coming in when the gates opened around 5:00 am. Unlike normal Nationals policy, no outside food may be brought in. Which means that around noon today you're going to see one hungry crowd of close to 50,000 people (yes, this one will be more than a sellout) looking for somewhere to eat. Even in the early morning darkness, they surely will have noticed on their way into the stadium that there's not exactly a plethora of choices of places to eat in the neighborhood. Their only real option for munchies coming off their donut and cardboard communion wafer high will be the food stalls within the park. Do you think that if they let Benedict cut to the front of the Ben's Chili Bowl line he can duplicate the five-loaves-and-a-few-fishes trick and feed the entire crowd with a half dozen half smokes all the way, with a couple of Five Guys burgers thrown in for good measure? And if you order a helmet sundae today, will it come in a pope's mitre or a cardinal's?
(Apologies to Chris for leaving a comment here that would be far more appropriate on Nats320. But apparently he's out of the country and not keeping up his blog, leaving me nowhere else to go...)
By
An Briosca Mor, at 4/17/2008 9:39 AM
I appreciate the apology!
You know you've got a high-class troll, when he respectfully considers the audience! :)
By
Chris Needham, at 4/17/2008 9:42 AM
ABM - that would be a Saint Louis Cardinal helmet sundae!
By
logan, at 4/17/2008 10:06 AM
and how about
Guz
Milledge
Belliard
Johnson
Zim
Pena
LoD
pitcher
Kearns
By
logan, at 4/17/2008 10:12 AM
I like Kearns leading off, but I would make one other switch. I'd bat Milledge third and Zimmerman fifth. That keeps the righty, switch, righty, lefty, righty top five, but puts a higher average batter third and a more powerful batter (hopefully) fifth. Call me a traditionalist.
Oh, one more improvement. I’d bring back Flores and play him all the time, move Flores to 7th and bat Belliard 8th. In addition to having a better hitter than PLoD, we’d have a catcher who could actually throw out a runner on occasion.
By
Anonymous, at 4/17/2008 10:20 AM
Actually, since what they're supposed to be doing with the helmet sundaes is to offer a choice between the home team's helmet and the helmet of that day's opponent, today they should have the St. Louis Cardinals and left over Tampa Bay Devil Rays helmets, right?
By
An Briosca Mor, at 4/17/2008 11:42 AM
One advantage to having Kearns lead off would be that it reduces by one the number of his at bats each day that could result in GIDP. Of course, that might hurt his pursuit of the record, and you gotta factor that in too, don't you? That's why the manager gets the big bucks...
By
An Briosca Mor, at 4/17/2008 11:46 AM
For a guy who (appropriately) calls out Svurluga every time he steals one of your ideas, you could give me a shout out!
http://dcbb.blogspot.com/2008/04/way-we-was-week-2.html#c5507892071146980234
Of course, we'd have Grady or OC or Phillips at the top of the order if not for MLB's conspiracy to destroy our franchise, the legacy of which continues to cripple this team, whether we want to admit it or not.
By
Steven, at 4/17/2008 2:09 PM
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