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David Ortiz At First And Adrian Gonzalez In The Outfield: Inspired Or Incompetent?
The Red Sox want their best hitters in the lineup, but that means putting a questionable defense on the field. Are they doing the right thing?
David Ortiz at first base and Adrian Gonzalez in left field: Madness? Or inspired genius?
The upside
David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez are the hottest 1-2 lineup punch in baseball right now. The guy with the .311/.391/.581 slash-line is the weak link. And the Red Sox will face the Philadelphia Phillies -- it's an under-the-radar series against one of the most underrated pitching staffs in baseball. It's a shame that more people aren't talking about it. And even the mighty Red Sox will need all of the runs they can get. Ortiz and Gonzalez represent their best chance at scoring.
The downside
Defense so bad, it tears the fabric of space and time. David Ortiz missing a pickoff throw. Ortiz unable to scoop a low throw. Ortiz killing a family of four trying for a pop foul. Ortiz getting his left cleat stuck on his right ear, and hopping around while Terry Francona chases after him. It’d be like a “Lucy” episode, but with lots of blood.
As for Adrian Gonzalez, he’s a fine fielder around first, but he’s not the fastest fella on the field. He’s a bit of a lumberer and a station-to-station base runner, so it’s hard to picture him having the athleticism to play the outfield. For example, here are two outfielders with experience in left field:
Last two are courtesy of Lookout Landing
Those sorts of things don't happen every game Raul Ibanez and Pat Burrell play, but again, those are guys with thousands of innings of left-field experience.
An outfielder without any experience, shuffled into the vast prairies to keep his bat in the lineup? You don't truly appreciate how bittersweet it is to live in an MLB.com/.gif kind of world until you realize that this is a world bereft of Todd Hundley videos and/or .gifs. Hundley was an All-Star catcher who got injured and came back to a Mets team that had acquired Mike Piazza in the interim. He played left field like he was wearing full catcher's gear, made of plutonium that made him nauseous.
I wouldn’t expect Gonzalez to be as bad as Hundley -- I would expect Joe West or Bob Davidson to be as bad as Hundley in the outfield -- but I wouldn’t expect Gonzalez to be as good as Burrell or Ibanez, either. There’s a chance for .gif-ready magic. That’s a small chance, though. The odds that a ball in play will somehow injure or embarrass Gonzalez and Ortiz are still low, and keeping one of the two hitters out of the lineup is pretty significant.
So mark me down for a “sure, why not?” vote. Best-case scenario: the Red Sox score a bunch of runs, and there aren’t any misadventures in the field. Worst-case scenario: there are several comical misadventures in the outfield, and the video/.gifs keep us warm over the winter. Also, it should be noted that I don’t really care if the Red Sox win or lose, so the “why not?” vote is exceptionally easy to talk myself into.
But will playing the DH at first and the first baseman in the outfield help the Red Sox win? Don’t know. Probably more than it hurts, but we won’t know until they actually play, which is why you need to commit now so you can brag that you were right later.
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