Padres Lineup Shuffle Kills Offense

Bud Black mixed up his lineup card again in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Notably, by leaving out star right fielder Matt Kemp for the first time this season in favor of recently recalled Abraham Almonte.

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Resting Kemp allowed hot hitting Wil Myers to slide back into the 3rd spot in the lineup. However, the switch did not pay off as the top three batters went hitless, and the Padres squandered another beautiful start from Andrew Cashner.

Is it just me or do the San Diego Padres do more lineup shuffling than any other team in baseball? Every year during Sunday games I feel like guys are playing out of position, and the entire bench is cleared just to get guys some at bats.

The great teams know what their lineup is. Then only alter from it to give at most one to two players a well deserved night off.

I understand giving Norris a rest behind the plate, but 33 games into the season I don’t think even Bud Black knows what the true starting lineup is.

With the Dodgers tearing through their competition so far in this young season, it looks like if the Padres make the playoffs, it will be in a wild card spot.

So if the Friars had one game to put it all on the line, who would make the starting lineup? With the current roster and Yonder Alonso on the DL, mine would look like this:

2B Cory Spangenberg
3B Yangervis Solarte
RF Matt Kemp
LF Justin Upton
1B Wil Myers
C Derek Norris
CF Will Venable
SS Alexi Amarista
P James Shields

Black’s avid lineup shuffling has to play at least a small part in this Padres ‘feast or famine’ offense. Giving guys a rest every now and then is fine, but when Black shuffles the lineup as much as he does it’s hard to expect our hitters to find a rhythm at the plate and consistently score runs.

These are the games that the Padres need to win if they want to make it to October. They need to figure out how they are going to support great pitching performances from Cashner and Ross. There is no way that will be accomplished with players getting courtesy starts in the 2 hole of the lineup.

If the Padres were to play in the one game playoff tomorrow, what should their lineup look like? Do you like seeing different players in and out of the lineup or does it hurt the club?

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