Pena leads off. Yordan hits 3rd. Altuve and Correa hit 2nd and 4th in either order. 5th: Sanchez vs RHP/ Walker vs LHP 6th: Walker vs RHP/ Diaz vs LHP 7th: Diaz vs RHP/Smith vs LHP 8th: Meyers 9th: Dubon (Urias vs RHP if Altuve isn't 2B)
1. Pena-SS 2. Smith-RF 3. Alvarez-DH 4. Altuve-LF/2B 5. Correa-3B 6. Walker-1B 7. Urias/Sanchez 2B/LF 8. Diaz-C 9. Melton- CF Don't like Smith in the 2 hole, but he does one thing that no one else on this roster does, works counts. Maybe having protection behind him will help him (praying). Putting someone between Walker and Diaz. Those two are two similar and putting a lefty between doesn't let the pitcher get the same look/feel/batter for two straight plate appearances. 9 slot will hopefully be Meyer come 9/1.
I don't mind Smith in the #2 spot vs LHP But not at the expense of dropping Pena, Altuve, Correa, or Yordan down a spot. Those 4 must ALWAYS hit above him if they are playing. Cam needs to be on the bench or better yet in AAA vs RHP I like 2026 Josh Reddick better than Cam Smith vs RHP
If JP France returns to the main roster, he should come back with an intimidation factor and throw a lot more brushback pitches. He can call them "French Kisses." This team is too nice.
IF you consider how Pena has played this year as unsustainable, and IF you consider Meyers performance this year unsustainable, then yea maybe they greatly overperformed But until we lost those two and Paredes, we had a Very good team, it's just that we were getting strong performances from a few players that many didn't consider to be above average When we had all three of those guys go down though, at that point we didn't have enough talent left to be an above average team. Since that LAD sweep before the all star break this team has gone 15-23, that's a 64-98 pace, and without those guys that's about the talent level we have Now certainly adding Correa helps, but he isn't the offensive player that Paredes is at this point, so while we have improved from what we were having to put out there, we aren't back to where we were before the injury. We have no answer in CF for Meyers, none. No one in our organization right now can come close to giving us what he was. By the end of September though, my guess is the thing that could potentially keep us from making the playoffs will be not addressing the pen at the deadline. For all the talk of how good Dana is at finding guys for the pen, right now IF King and Souza are rested then a lead after 6 innings gives us a decent (not great) chance at winning. But if a starter comes out before the 6th is over, and they usually do, then even a lead is not likely to stand
Diaz started off awful but over the past month he has been our best hitter with an OPS over 800 There is ZERO reason for Sanchez to bat 5th ahead of Diaz/Walker until he shows us a reason. He is "hitting" .150 wtih a .436 OPS over the past month
If Arrighetti can get going and Javier keeps it up then you can send Lance and Alexander and maybe garcia to the bullpen and it gets a lot deeper. Walter getting shut down hurt. I still think that the solution is staring them in the face with blubaugh and Ullola who have stuff and swing and miss and should be in the bullpen for the stretch run, but I’m apparently at odds with the brain trust on that. I get walks are bad but so is the batting practice out bottom of the pen is throwing out there on the regular.
I will absolutely be excited about this playoff roster: SS Pena 2B Altuve DH Alvarez 3B Correa 1B Walker LF Sanchez C Diaz RF Smith CF Meyers Bench: Dubon, Caratini, Urias, Melton SP: Brown, Valdez, Javier, Arrighetti RP: Abreu, Kimbrel, Sousa, King, Okert, Dubin, Ort, McCullers, Blubaugh
Yeah the only hitter putting effort at making pitchers work Not pitchers cruising with 50 pitches in 7 innings going on the past month lol. It's like the only guys hitting decent are Correa & Urias, who coincidentally weren't part of the team hack-first approach
