There's talk today that Indians manager Terry Francona wants to get Carlos Santana's bat into the DH-less lineup and so will play him in left field in Game 3 tonight.
Not!
It's not Santana's bat that gets into the game by virtue of his placement in left field. It's Mike Napoli's.
You see, Santana is no worse a first baseman than Napoli, which is damning with the faintest of praise. Neither of these guys is Keith Hernandez. But Santana's a better hitter, and so without a DH Napoli would have sat and Santana would have manned the cold corner.
But the pair crushed 68 home runs this season, something that might be useful on a windy night in the Friendly Confines.
So Santana and Napoli will certainly get six trips to the plate tonight, probably eight and maybe more.
In exchange, there might (or might not) be a ball or two that challenges Santana in left field, one that Brandon Guyer or Coco Crisp might have corralled, or cut off, or played better in some other way.
From Francona's standpoint, it's not much of a tradeoff. You put the bat in the game every time.
No comments:
Post a Comment