I pick Bruntlett. Nothing Everett does on defense blows me away, and we need all the hitting we can get right now. Viz stays on the bench as a proven pinch hitter.
I don't agree at all. Whoever bats first will get the most at-bats in a game, and Biggio is a better hitter than Willy. Plus, if Biggio leads off and gets on base, Willy can try to bunt for a hit - even if he fails, he still advances Biggio.
Is agreeing with yourself worth a post? The only thing worse would be a post complaining about you agreeing with yourself.
I know there are people who agree with me, but anyways I might just be frustrated because, although Biggio roughed up a pitcher in Hudson who was all over the place (much like Roger was), a "decent" experienced pitcher like Smoltz made him look silly all night. Not to mention, a Willy T. on base is a valuable Willy T. He can just as quickly get to second with a steal (and have no outs, but of course he can get thrown out but I'd put my money on Willy every time) as Biggio can with a sac bunt, and can often turn and shallow outfield hit into a scoring play.
smoltz has always made biggio look silly. for as long as i can remember. smoltz has owned the astros. he's an astro killer. biggio is a far better hitter than willie taveras, though. far better.
Absolutely nonsense. What are the chances of a leadoff guy having more at bats than the 2nd hitter? Hardly ever happens. It's not who's the better hitter...it's who's the better hitter at that batting order (leadoff, 2nd, etc). Based on your premise, shouldn't albert pujols should lead off every game since he's the best from the cards? Switching the two batters last week makes no sense to me to begin with...not sure what Garner is thinking. Tavares is a worst hitter with men on simply because he cannot drive the ball...he has the speed to create havoc on the base paths and no pop in his bat. Biggio on the other hand has the power to drive people in if there are men on base. He's a lot slower nowadays and is probably an average baserunner. Typically, for a leadoff guy you want them to have higher on base percentage and for them to be very fast to create havoc in the basepaths. There is not really any need for them to drive that many runs in because because there's the bottom of the lineup hitting right before you. There will never be any baserunners on for our leadoff guy especially with our sucky bottom of the order. For the second guy in the batting order, you want them to have more pop than the leadoff guy to drive them in. Do you remember what happened in the first game? We tried to manufactur a run. There was 1 man on 1st and biggio was up. He sacrafice bunted the runner to 2nd base hoping Tavares can drive him in. What happened? He didn't drive him in and there goes the inning. Woudn't you rather have biggio hitting with 2 outs and a runner in scoring position than Tavares? This actually happened once before in the regular season when he first started to experiment with this.
Actually I heard him address this last week. First of all, Willy T hasn't been getting on base as much and might see better pitches hitting in front of #3. Secondly, and this is what Garner mentioned specifically, Ausmus has been getting on base much more and he wanted Bidge closer to him in the order in order to drive the run in. In fact, it has worked out that way for the Astros more than once since the move was made.
I like Bruntlett best, but he's valuable off the bench in the later innings because he's clutch, and he can play ANY position, perfect for a double switch. Viz is better than Everett as a pinch hitter, so that's why I say stick with Everett. Everett almost had that 3-run dinger and blasted another one to center, so maybe he'll surprise us with something in Game 3.
