cmarlow's Blog

STL:

If it ain't broke ... don't fix it, I heard that somewhere once.  But, even though Troy Glaus and Rick Ankiel are both on their biggest offensive tears of the season, Tony LaRussa decided to flip-flop them in the line-up.  I don't get it.  Baseball players are creatures of habit, they want to have a defined role that they can carry out day in and day out.  In the last month batting clean-up Ankiel was hitting a homerun just about every other game.  And in the five hole Glaus has 14 homers since the calendar turned to June.  Glaus has even said publicly that he's more comfortable batting fifth.  So I'll say it again, I don't get it.  If the movie Bull Durham taught us anything, besides that you should never throw a punch in a bar fight with your pitching hand, it's that you've got to respect the streak.  Especially with Ankiel because he's proven to be a streaky hitter ever since making it back to the bigs as an outfielder.  When a player's hot, you don't mess with them, you ride out the streak, because it's impossible to be great for 6 months in a row.

The way I see it, Glaus and Ankiel got LaRussa'd.  The last time I saw a manager tinker with his line-up this much was when I was in t-ball, and that's only because every player had to play atleast 2 innings every game (league rule).

I understand that LaRussa knows more about baseball than I do, and he surely knows his players better than I do ... but, still I don't understand this move.

STL: agree or disagree?

Charlie Marlow