Matchups Galore
Its a good time to talk about matchups, since Leyland seems to be a big fan of lefty vs righty matchups. Also, in that mold, Leyland moved Kenny Rogers back one day, so he could start tonight in Oak-town instead Seattle last night. The reason? The Gambler is 25-4 at the Coliseum. There’s a matchup for you.
I have no idea how good Carlos Guillen will be in the outfield.. or how bad I guess. Sounds like he had lots of fun yesterday. Detroit has struggled all year against right handers… here’s a potential lineup for you:
Guillen, Granderson, Clete Thomas in the outfield… Larish at first… Magglio or Cabrera at the DH (assuming one gets a day off every once in a while). Pudge, Inge, Renteria, Polanco stay in their respective positions. I assume Larish, having played more then 20 games at first base, is an upgrade defensively over Cabrera. Now you have four left handed bats in a lineup, where we started the season with two. We can’t play this lineup every day — you can’t sit Magglio’s bat or your highest paid player for long — but it does give some more flexible options to help grind out a game. And that is what Detroit needs to do for a little while — grind out some games.
I do think its unfair to throw Jeff Larish into the DH spot and expect him to produce. If Sheffield claims he needs to be in the field, after having a solid year last year at the DH position, I assume a 26 year old might have a similar problem in his first few major league at-bats. It might be worth DH’ing Cabrera and playing Larish in the field for a game or two, instead of the other way around.
Last thought: As the most prolific defensive third baseman in the history of the game (or at least how the media has portrayed him recently), Inge is hitting .221. Thats bad even for him. I’m all for playing Inge at third… and giving Thames 600 at bats, where most people seem to think he’ll hit 40 home runs while hitting .225… and batting Pudge, who’s hitting is evaporating before our eyes… but to have a winning team, they can’t all play. I can’t see how Detroit would be .500 this year if Thames, Inge and Pudge all had regular spots in the lineup. They don’t hit well enough, and worse, they don’t on base enough. And, there’s always the Sheffield return that will eventually happen, unless management can keep Sheff under wraps until his shoulder fully heals (which is not the reason he went on the DL.. not sure it matters).