Dodgers @ Phillies May 23, 2014: Arruebarrenamania

I’m tempted to find a non-first base infield in major league history with less power than the one we’ll see tonight of Dee Gordon, Erisbel Arruebarrena and Chone Figgins. I’m not tempted enough to actually do it, of course. But tempted nonetheless. Gordon has three career homers, one in each of the last three seasons. Figgins has 35, but only four since the start of 2010; his last came more than two years ago, when he was still with Seattle. And Arruebarrena? It’s his major league debut and he has all of 20 professional hits, though somehow one was actually a homer. I’m fascinated to see his reportedly stellar defense, and terrified to see just how atrocious he’s going to be at the plate.

	Dodgers			Phillies
	4:05pm PT			Philadelphia, PA
2B	Gordon		SS	Rollins
3B	Figgins		C	Ruiz
RF	Puig		2B	Utley
1B	Gonzalez		RF	Byrd
CF	Ethier		1B	Howard
LF	Crawford		LF	Ruf
C	Ellis		3B	C. Hernandez
SS	Arruebarrena		CF	Mayberry
P	Kershaw (L)		P	R. Hernandez (R)

Needless to say, it’s an intriguing lineup, one that doesn’t have Hanley Ramirez or Matt Kemp in it, as well as the disabled Juan Uribe. For Ramirez, it’s just a standard day off — Don Mattingly told us the other day in New York that part of the reason Arruebarrena is here is because he didn’t feel the team had a real backup at shortstop — and for Kemp, it’s partially a way to get a lefty-heavy lineup in against Roberto Hernandez, the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona. (Over Hernandez’ career, lefties have lit him up to the tune of .289/.362/.448.)

That all makes sense, and it’ll be fun to watch Ryne Sandberg try to bring out a lefty reliever against a bench that has Ramirez, Kemp and Scott Van Slyke just waiting. Of course, it might not be only about that; Mattingly is beginning to drop hints about his dissatisfaction with the team’s defense, and while I’d been planning to write about Kemp’s defense early next week, now I’m planning to do so for tomorrow morning. SO LOOK FOR THAT.

Oh, and Clayton Kershaw is starting, coming off one of the worst starts of his career. I’m torn between him thinking “way to support me with a lineup, Don,” and “yay, defense, thanks Don!”

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