Bobby Cox Needs Lineup 101 Lesson
Ray and I talked about this last night, and it makes a good blog post as I sit home sick with infected ears and throat. Why in the world is Kelly Johnson batting lead-off for the Atlanta Braves?
Johnson’s average is .241 and his on base percentage is a pathetic .323, and somehow Bobby Cox believes those are lead-off numbers. They are not.
Yunel Escobar, the Braves young second baseman, is hitting .297 and his on base percentage is .390, along with his three home runs. Why is he batting second?
These little things are what counts in the game of baseball. A small line up change can make a world of difference for a team like the Braves, struggling to remain competitive.
After losing another game to the freaking Washington Nationals, that batting order seemed to be a malady of a larger disorder, which is there is no clutch in the punch. No one is getting the hits when they count. After a 2-2 game for a majority of the night, the Braves’ shaky bullpen, namely Blaine Boyer, threw the game away in the matter of minutes. Once the score turned to 6-2, we knew the next two innings were going to fly by and the Braves were going to come away with another disappointing loss to a cellar dweller.
That’s exactly what happened, folks. It’s not a good thing when your team is so predictable.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Atlanta Braves, Bobby Cox, Kelly Johnson, Yunel Escobar
I love this. I’ve linked this article to our blog in Milwaukee. Ned Yost also doesn’t know how to formulate a lineup, I’m assuming this is something he learned from Bobby Cox.
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