Fredi Making Me Insane Again

Has everyone seen the Braves lineup for tonight? Top four as follows:

Bourn
Prado
Freeman
Uggla

Looks good to me. Lefty-righty-lefty-righty. Two good table setters followed by your two best run producers currently available. But, I wouldn't write a blog post about that:

Gonzalez
Conrad
Ross
Constanza
Lowe

Oh boy. I can't wait to see Alex Gonzalez flailing at pitches with runners on base. I get it, he's 7 for 15 against Lannan in his career. It doesn't mean you move a guy up to 5th who has been struggling for 2 months. Fredi says 'But he's been saving us runs with his glove all season.' My response, 'he can't transfer those runs he saves into runs scored.' (Fredi didn't actually say that about his lineup, but would you be that surprised if he said it after the game tonight when asked about it?) Maybe Fredi did it because Gonzo was almost a league average hitter 2 different seasons in his 12 year career. I'll take my 12 year sample of Alex Gonzalez being a crappy hitter, while Fredi can have his 15 at bats against Lannan.

Next up is Brooks Conrad, who has never been a good hitter right handed and is a bit of a butcher with his glove. Good thing he is playing 3rd base tonight with a ground ball pitcher on the mound. He could do something with his bat, but I don't think this is the time to get him in the lineup. Ross should be starting and probably be hitting fifth given some of the turd that is starting tonight, despite not being a great hitter in his career against lefties. And Jose Constanza has stolen the heart of Fredi Gonzalez, as he doesn't belong in a major league lineup. I shouldn't be surprised by this, however, as Julio Lugo and Scott Proctor are still on the roster. Jason Heyward should not be left out of the lineup in favor 27 year old non prospect career minor leaguer who was allowed to become a minor league free agent by a bad team last year (Cleveland).

Against lefties, Fredi Gonzalez's options are pretty limited. Not a lot he can do about that. However, he can do better than this, and a lot of people know it. However, one game is a small sample, so perhaps the Braves can overcome Fredi's disservice to the organization to get themselves a victory tonight.