It's tough to say either Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau is slumping, considering the duo were hitting .394 and .309 entering Monday's game against Kansas City. As of right now (eighth inning), Mauer is 0-4 and Morneau is 1-3 with a home run. That's now two straight games with homers for Justin, but he still seems better suited at third in the Twins lineup.
After missing the entire month of April, Mauer was plugged into the third spot in the batting order, and started with a bang, hitting .397 with a .494 on-base percentage with seven homers in 18 games.
But he was just warming up.
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire moved Mauer to the two-hole, and Mauer's numbers jumped: .430 BA, 24 RBIs and seven more homers in 27 games, all but four of those as the No. 2 hitter.
But then Gardy reverted back to a previous lineup, and Mauer made his way back to third in the order. An injury to leadoff hitter Denard Span (inner ear infection) and somewhat of a resurgence by Brendan Harris made for a revamped top of the Twins lineup over the past month or so, thus putting Mauer at No. 3.
Since then, Mauer has hit .240 with just one run batted in heading into Monday's contest in Kansas City. (His average after Monday has dropped to .386.)
After June 23--when Mauer returned to third and Morneau fourth--Justin hit .182 with five strikeouts and four runs batted in before Monday (as mentioned, he went 1-4 with a HR and 2 RBI against the Royals). Still, his numbers were clearly better when Mauer was getting on base ahead of him, and that happened more often when Joe was in the 2-spot.
Of all Gardenhire's curious managing decisions--the continuing use of Nick Punto at second base, Delmon Young in left, and (until recently) reliever Jesse Crain in close-game situations--the moving of Mauer and Morneau down a spot in the lineup doesn't add up.
The old, overused adage reminds to not fix things which aren't broken. The M&M Boys were just fine hitting second and third. For a team that hasn't climbed more than a game over .500 all season, it might be best to go back to what works.
Mauer and Morneau will also get more AB's during the course of the year while batting 2 and 3. Thats a good thing in my book.
ReplyDeleteGood point. Not sure if there's a way to calculate how many mre ABs it would be, but you can certainly imagine it'd be at least a handful more per season.
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