As we discussed earlier today, New York Yankees Manager Joe Girardi has shuffled his lineup for Saturday night’s game against Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox. The changes, though, aren’t as dramatic as the ones I advocated earlier.
The top five hitters in the Yankee lineup remain the same, but Girardi did move the chess pieces at the bottom of the lineup. As we speculated, Girardi pushed designated hitter Jorge Posada and his .165 batting average to the nine spot in the batting order. Struggling Nick Swisher, hitting just .221, was dropped to eighth.
Russell Martin and Brett Gardner were moved up to sixth and seventh, respectively, from the eighth and ninth spots in the lineup.
The complete batting order is shown below:
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH