Stewart surprise starter at second
The season doesn’t start for a few hours, and already manager Clint Hurdle has pulled a surprise. Left-handed hitting Ian Stewart will start at second, instead of last year’s regular, Clint Barmes. This is obviously a strategic move, putting another lefty in the lineup against D-backs sinkerballer Brandon Webb.
(A full story will be coming soon on the Web site.)
Stewart played some second last season. He began working at second late in Spring Training.
“I knew it was going to happen at some point this season,” Stewart said. “I had no idea it would be this soon.”
Interestingly, Stewart is batting sixth and Troy Tulowitzki will drop to seventh. Normally, Hurdle intends to bat Tulowitzki sixth. But his Opening Day lineup has lefty hitters in spots 2, 3, 5 and 6, as the Rockies believe it’s a better matchup against the right-handed Webb.
Here’s the lineup:
Ryan Spilborghs CF
Seth Smith LF
Todd Helton 1B
Garrett Atkins 3B
Brad Hawpe RF
Ian Stewart 2B
Troy Tulowitzki SS
Chris Iannetta C
Aaron Cook P
Here’s how the D-backs will addres Rockies sinkerballer Aaron Cook:
Felipe Lopez 2B
Chris Young CF
Stephen Drew SS
Chad Tracy 3B
Eric Byrnes RF
Tony Clark 1B
Conor Jackson LF
Chris Snyder C
Brandon Webb P
- Posted on April 6, 2009 at 12:40 pm
- Permalink
- 4 Comments
- Filed in: Dailies
- Tags: Aaron Cook, Brad Hawpe, Brandon Webb, Chris Iannetta, Clint Barmes, Clint Hurdle, Garrett Atkins, Ian Stewart, Ryan Spilborghs, Seth Smith, Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki
mlblogsharding1
I like the way that Hurdle is thinking early in the season. These early games mean a whole bunch and us Rockies fans know that from last years experience. Go Rockies!!!
-Doug
http://rockiesmania.mlblogs.com
This makes a lot of sense to me. I was thinking yesterday he was going to do this. I guess there’s always a danger if you don’t get the team on board with this, but the guys should be professional enough to realize that they are capable of matchup up against certain pitchers, so they should do it this way. As long as Helton-Atkins-Hawpe are in place, I’d say mix and match.
I thought that Hurdle’s best move as a Rockies manager was letting the boys play during that 22-game stretch in 2007. Seems like when he does too much managing, it comes back to haunt him/us. Barmes has had some amazing starts to seasons in the past. Let him play for crying out loud. I hope that being a late scratch opening day when he’s the more deserving player won’t hurt his momentum this year.
I wish I could have seen the game today, but Fox Sports Rocky Mountain decided to black out the game after advertising it for months. Blog about that, and you’ll find some ticked fans out there.
I’ll be honest: I don’t know about what happened on television. I’ll try to get an answer. As for Hurdle’s decision, it made a lot of sense to me because of the matchups. But, as I wrote about later (before my brain became like a potato pancake — fried after a long and exciting Opening Day), the question is not what we think about the move. It’s what his players think. It seems justified, but the main concern is that the players understand the reasoning. The way the roster looks, there are plenty of opportunities for Hurdle to spring out new lineups, and those lineups need to work.