Giants @ Dodgers April 29, 2015: The Rise of Joc Pederson

“When is Joc Pederson going to stop hitting eighth? When will Don Mattingly finally bump Jimmy Rollins out of the leadoff spot?”

	Giants			Dodgers
	7:10 p.m.			Los Angeles, Ca.
LF	Aoki		CF	Pederson
2B	Panik		SS	Rollins
CF	Pagan		2B	Kendrick
C	Posey		1B	Gonzalez
1B	Belt		RF	Van Slyke
RF	Maxwell		LF	Ethier
3B	McGehee		C	Grandal
SS	Crawford		3B	Uribe
P	Vogelsong (R)		P	Greinke (R)

Every day with this, seriously. In my Twitter mentions. In the comments here. In our mailbox. “Stop hitting Pederson eighth. Stop hitting Rollins leadoff. Mattingly is killing this team.” Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day.

And yeah, we knew that Rollins hitting leadoff wasn’t the best idea, even before he got off to a surprisingly slow .182/.281/.299 start. I’m pretty sure we wrote about it before the season. I’m also pretty sure that I’ve said a few times that I had absolutely no problem with starting an unproven young player like Pederson low in the lineup as a low-pressure way of introducing him to the big leagues. As he continued to hit, I noted that it wouldn’t be okay for him to stay that low forever, but it was still April, and the idea was sound.

Today, the move we all knew was coming has happened, sort of. I mean, we all knew Rollins couldn’t stay atop the lineup hitting like that all year, and we know that Pederson couldn’t keep hitting that low. I’m not sure I expected Pederson to jump right up to leadoff, but with Yasiel Puig and Carl Crawford both injured, I’m not sure there were really any other viable options, either.

The change has been made, and maybe that will quiet the crowds inexplicably still going after the manager. (Not that lineups really matter that much, as I wrote in the new issue of Dodger Insider magazine.) Scott Van Slyke is starting against a righty, which is also a step in the right direction. Alex Guerrero isn’t, though. There’s always something to complain about.

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