With the Red Sox facing their first lefty of the season and John Farrell trying to give some guys some rest before tomorrow's 2 o'clock home opener, the lineup looks a little different today. No, Ortiz is not batting 9th or taking the night off so that he can take selfies and tweet them out. He'll still be in his usual 3 spot sandwiched in between Dustin Pedroia and Mike Napoli.
- Jonny Gomes LF/R
- Dustin Pedoia 2nd/R
- David Ortiz DH/L
- Mike Napoli 1st/R
- Xander Bogaerts SS/R
- Daniel Nava RF/S
- Will Middlebrooks 3rd/R
- David Ross C/R
- Jackie Bradley Jr. CF/L
Looking at the statistics and recent play of the players who are in tonight's lineup but batting in a random location, this is what I've come up with.
Jackie Bradley Jr.- Batting 9th makes sense with the fact that he is a lefty and he was scheduled to start the year in Pawtucket.
Will Middlebrooks- Had to move somewhere to give the 9th spot to Bradley Jr. Has faced Wei-Yin Chen 16 times and has a .375 average against him
Daniel Nava- Placed into the middle hoping that he'll bring home some base runner. In 8 appearances against Chen he has 5 hits including 1 homerun.
Xander Bogaerts- His OBP is .625. He will happily take a walk if he doesn't get the pitch he wants. He may be young, but has shown that he is not afraid of the spotlight.
Jonny Gomes- Yes, there was a reason I started at nine and worked my way backwards to one. Gomes batting leadoff is a bit of a puzzle. The only reason it's not a complete shocker is because Farrell tried it out during spring training. Looking through every statistic I could to try and find a reason to bat him in this position, the only thing I came up with was his batting average in Camden Yards. Last season Gomes went 7 for 19 and had 2 homeruns in Baltimore.
Jackie Bradley Jr.- Batting 9th makes sense with the fact that he is a lefty and he was scheduled to start the year in Pawtucket.
Will Middlebrooks- Had to move somewhere to give the 9th spot to Bradley Jr. Has faced Wei-Yin Chen 16 times and has a .375 average against him
Daniel Nava- Placed into the middle hoping that he'll bring home some base runner. In 8 appearances against Chen he has 5 hits including 1 homerun.
Xander Bogaerts- His OBP is .625. He will happily take a walk if he doesn't get the pitch he wants. He may be young, but has shown that he is not afraid of the spotlight.
Jonny Gomes- Yes, there was a reason I started at nine and worked my way backwards to one. Gomes batting leadoff is a bit of a puzzle. The only reason it's not a complete shocker is because Farrell tried it out during spring training. Looking through every statistic I could to try and find a reason to bat him in this position, the only thing I came up with was his batting average in Camden Yards. Last season Gomes went 7 for 19 and had 2 homeruns in Baltimore.
The two lefties going tonight are Felix Doubront and Wei-Yin Chen. Last August these two southpaws face each other at Fenway Park. Doubront got the win after going 6.2 and giving up only 2 runs on 4 hits. Chen didn't last very long in that outing and served up 8 hits, 3 walks and 8 runs in 3.2 innings of work. Neither pitcher had a good spring training. After seeing his spring training ERA go well into the double digits, Doubront got things a little more on track in his final tuneup when he pitched 5 innings of shutout ball, of course he still gave up 7 hits in that outing.
Tonight as I give my remote control its second workout in two days, I'll be watching for the following: How Doubront and Ross work together as I think Ross will be catching for Felix a lot this year. Dustin Pedroia at the plate since he went 4/5 last night and has a .579 average against Chen.
Tonight as I give my remote control its second workout in two days, I'll be watching for the following: How Doubront and Ross work together as I think Ross will be catching for Felix a lot this year. Dustin Pedroia at the plate since he went 4/5 last night and has a .579 average against Chen.
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