A pretty good lineup against a LHP if you believe Diaz will continue to have bad results against LHPs.
Matt Thomas show said they were going to post this to rile of Astros Twitter. BUT, we know Diaz wouldn't have been starting at catcher even if there was a RHP that he had already dominated because Framber is the boss.
With the unfortunate truth of the Diaz/Maldonado situation in regards to Framber this is probably the best team we should play. On top of that Maldonado has been perfectly fine against LHP in recent seasons, better than fine actually. One could argue for Diaz over Singleton, but I'm on board for riding with Singleton for a little while to see how he fares. Tucker hitting second is something that should have happened ages ago. I really hope Diaz is in the lineup the next 2 games, but when Dusty isn't a fan of a player nothing is ever guaranteed.
The only thing I would do differently is swap yordan and bregman. I would also start Diaz at C and bat him 5th, regardless of the tiny lefty sample sizes. Dusty, and a few fans here, are desperately clinging to that tiny sample size and ignoring other larger ones but whats new. Go Astros!
355 PA over the last 4 seasons is not a tiny sample size. I know people are so frustrated with Maldonado they b**ch about anything complimentary, but he has a .760 OPS over the last 4 seasons against LHP. He is a perfectly competent hitter against them, good even. The problem is he doesn't get played based on matchups, so we have to watch his embarrassing performance against RHP...constantly.
It’s time for Diaz to play regardless of who’s pitching for them or for us. He is also the much better defensive catcher and we win more when he catches. Maldonado got 3 hits the other day to raise his average to .182. He’s never “good”. Anyway. Moot point as we all know.
