It was only
a week ago when Ozzie Guillen said the following:
“Mackowiak
needs to play also, but the way (Brian Anderson) has been swinging the bat
now, we have to leave him alone. He’s
swinging the bat better. We are going to keep him in as long as we can.”
So why has Brian Anderson only started three of the last six games?
Beats the heck out of me, but it's obvious I declared victory far too early.
Considering Anderson had more base hits with runners in scoring position yesterday than Scott Podsednik, Tadahito Iguchi, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, Juan Uribe, Sandy Alomar Jr., Jesus Christ and Superman combined, the "long as we can" threshold hadn't nearly been reached.
Nevertheless, Rob Mackowiak started in his place, while Scott Podsednik manned left field. This makes no sense for three reasons, aside from the glove:
1) Yanking him in and out of the lineup is not "leaving him alone." Especially when he's deployed in a pinch-hitting situation where he comes into the game with two strikes against him, such as tonight.
2) Anderson has reverse platoon splits. In the last two games Anderson has started, he's faced two All-Stars -- Johan Santana and Kenny Rogers, both lefties. Why would they expect results when Anderson's hitting lefties decidedly worse?
He's slugging .417 against righties, and .289 against southpaws. If he's sitting against righties because Rob Mackowiak needs to get into games, well...
3) ...Scott Podsednik needs more time off. I'd like to see Mackowiak's bat in the lineup more, too. He had a couple hits tonight, including a double, to raise his average to .300.
Well, there's a spot for him. Right now, Mack's OBP is higher than Podsednik's slugging. Considering Pods is hitting .206/.261/.254 in August and Mack has one less stolen base (3) than Pods in the second half, there's no reason why Mack shouldn't be getting more reps in left field.
(Admittedly, Mack's not hitting much better in August, but he has less than half the at-bats as Pods.)
Fortunately tonight, Mack's bat was able to make up for the run he allowed by not getting to a ball in center tonight. That's not always going to happen, as his bat isn't as consistently good as his glove is consistently bad.