Protection and Prince

[ILuvDaBush]

Is it my imagination or does the person batting in front of Prince exude Cooperstown-worthy attributes, yet show the warts of a middling AAAA player when Prince is needed elsewhere in the lineup? My argument is that it would seem that the person in front of Prince has just as many HR's as the gentleman leading the NL in the category. JJ looked like Cal Ripken with both his glove and bat when he had Prince behind him and when Braun was immediately put into the 3-spot, which is where he has done most of his power damage, Prince was moved back to the cleanup spot. I just figure with JJ's surge and Braun's showcase coinciding with the giant behemoth of a drinking buddy behind them in the lineup, cupcake fastballs must be on the menu. Now if only I could explain Rickie's recent adoptation of Estrada's walk-up music...

Estrada and Irony. Walk it Out... 3TO, with the walk being just as good as the out, because it seems he was read "The Tortoise and the Hare" once or twice as an infant. I am a big Yost backer, but if you want to question ANY of his moves this year, it should be when he decided that the best protection for the Regal One in the lineup was the spotty snail. It was like asking the pitcher to walk Fielder, HOPING another guy was on, knowing a groundball will MORE than likely get you a triple play...WITH EASE! And yet Fielder continued to attempt to break up the inevitable GIDP... I feel like shedding a tear... Done. The best spot in the lineup for him has always been the #7 (I don't want to imagine how many double plays the pitcher would be privy to if he had to execute a sac bunt to get the guy to third. The bunt could be perfectly down the 3B line, forcing the 3B to field it and vacate, barely getting the pitcher at first, and then you'd see Estrada, stopping at some 8 year-old's lemonade stand set up between 2B and 3B because he's so famished from the heat and the long trek it seems he has been on for days). Let's move on.

JJ is obviously again mashing in the #8 spot, which only invokes the JJ we saw 2 years ago, when he may not have looked like Ripken, but he did a pretty good impression of what Khalil Greene was always supposed to be, outside of a surfer of course. And I really like having Gross bat second vs. righties, though I would definitely like to see Hall in the 2-hole vs. lefties (I know we have a lot of lefties left on our bench when we face a southpaw, but the numbers vs. lefties of the guys starting are incredible. Imagine being a lefty and facing Hall/Braun/Fielder/Hart/Mench! And Weeks' OPS is 100 points higher vs. the southies.)

And Jenkins...well it seems that he and Hart switched roles today, as Hart was an RBI machine (please, let me remember Geoff as such) and Jenkins decided it is better to jack AND run! Like a Trojan!