It is Guzman that is a cancer to this team. I don't care about his average. T Plush takes a minimum of about 5 pitches an at bat. I would much rather have a .260 hitter that takes 6 pitches than a .290 hitter that takes 2.
That's what I've thought. I like Guz, and think he should be on the bench or batting 7th in RF as long as Morse plays too. But batting second is bull****. everyone, even Guzman, knows he has very short at bats. Two or three pitches if he's lucky. Now you have Morgan leadoff, who if he ever gets on base, is a threat to steal. It is literally criminal to give Morgan two pitches to try to steal on. You want, no, you are required to have someone who takes and fouls off repeatedly, behind a base stealer like Morgan. Now I won't say that's why Morgan has bee caught so often, but, well, i will. He knows he gets next to no chance to steal when Guzman is up and thus runs when he normally would hold because he knows he won't get another chance.
Having Morgan bat leadoff, with his base stealing, followed by a batter like Guzman, is some of the worst managerial mistakes I've ever seen in my life. There is no logic to it, it goes against the most basic tenets of baseball lineups, and it clearly is having a disateous effect on both players at this point. Not only, problems from there seem like they could have gotten in their heads due to a total lack of success from their 1-2 and partially explain why Morgan has fallen so far.
Bottom line, Morgan 1 and Guzman 2 should be #1 when time comes to fire Riggleman, months or years away. It makes no sense, dramatically and visibly hurts the team badly, and worst of all goes against the way you order your batters in the most dismal way possible.
