Padres @ Dodgers May 24, 2015: Welcome, Austin Barnes

So it’s only May, and the bottom half of the Dodger lineup is Andre Ethier, Alex Guerrero, Enrique Hernandez, Austin Barnes, and Carlos Frias. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say you wouldn’t have predicted that in March. I think it’s safer to say that you wouldn’t have predicted you wouldn’t be angered by that in March.

Padres
Dodgers
1:10 p.m.
Los Angeles
1B
Solarte
CF
Pederson
CF
Venable
SS
Rollins
RF
Kemp
2B
Kendrick
LF
Upton
1B
Gonzalez
C
Norris
RF
Ethier
2B
Spangenberg
3B
Guerrero
3B
Middlebrooks
LF
Hernandez
SS
Amarista
C
Barnes
P
Shields (R)
P
Frias (R)

But you’re not, are you? Ethier has been surprisingly good. We all know what Guerrero has done, though he’s got just three hits (all singles) in his last 22 plate appearances. Hernandez’ versatility has been all we’ve expected, since he’s the first Dodger to get starts at LF/CF/RF/SS since Jolbert Cabrera in 2003, and he can play second and third too. Frias has made adjustments that have brought him success, as Brim showed. And while Barnes is probably around only until Yasmani Grandal returns next weekend, it’s still pretty fun to see the last part of the Dee Gordon trade made his big league debut:

Now, less fun is that Jimmy Rollins is still hitting second. On the other hand, Don Mattingly‘s quote is interesting:

That’s going to get him killed among fans, because the knee-jerk reaction is “yes, obviously.” But while I’d love to see Rollins get diminished, as someone who’s long been pushing “batting order doesn’t matter as much as you think it does” — I wrote about exactly that in the May issue of Dodger Insider — it’s hard for me to crush him on it. It’s not the right call to leave Rollins second. It also doesn’t really have that big of an impact, all things considered.

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About Mike Petriello

Mike writes about lots of baseball in lots of places, and right now that place is MLB.com.