Reconfigured Lineup Pays Immediate Dividends in Pirates Series Opener

There comes a point at which lip service will no longer suffice to answer questions that have been repeated daily for a period of weeks. So a few days after saying the batting order didn’t matter as much as who was in the lineup, Craig Counsell finally made a big chance for Tuesday’s series opener in Pittsburgh. Carson Kelly, the NL’s fWAR leader at catcher, moved up to the cleanup spot with the slumping Dansby Swanson sliding down from fifth to eighth.

If getting instant results makes a manager look smarter, Counsell just became the 1,340th member of MENSA’s Chicago Area chapter. Kelly got the scoring started with a two-run blast to left in the 4th inning, his team-leading seventh of the season, and capped off the evening with a run-scoring single for his third knock. Swanson had just one hit, but it was a long liner to left-center that cleared the wall for his first dinger in three weeks and fifth overall.

“Yeah, I think really mainly we just decided to move Dansby in the order for now and really flip-flop him and Carson, essentially, is how I see it,” Counsell told reporters before the game.

Sometimes, a change of scenery might just be a matter of looking at a different name in the batter’s box from the on-deck circle. Swanson had been hitting fifth in all but the Cubs’ first two games in Japan, when he was sixth behind Matt Shaw. Speaking of which, Shaw is now 8-for-13 with two doubles, a homer, and three RBI over his last three games for Iowa. Anyway, back to the lecture at hand.

Even in a sport known for its ups and downs, Swanson plays the game like a coaster enthusiast. And I don’t mean someone who’s really anal about preventing moisture rings on their tables. Even his early power display was marred by incredibly bad luck and a questionable plate approach, both of which still appear to be dogging him. Despite a 50% hard-hit rate, his .221 BABIP is 86 points below his career average. He’s also striking out more than usual thanks to a 34.5% out-of-zone contact rate that currently sits nearly 18 points worse than his career mark.

My contention is that chasing slug via the use of a torpedo bat got him out of sync, whether by changing his swing plane, his timing, or both. The lack of results from all those hard-hit balls coupled with the increase in whiffs may have had him retreating into his own head, exacerbating the problems. Shifting to an external focus, like earning back his spot in the order, or just playing with a little more freedom due to reduced expectations, might be just what he needs.

“Dansby’s an offensive player who’s on the far end of streakiness and just who he is as a hitter,” Counsell explained. “And he’s in a little bit of one of the ruts right now. In the good stretches, he can carry a team for 10 or so days and be the best offensive player.

“That’s just where we’re at right now. He’ll get out of it. His defense has been phenomenal and exceptional. We’ll just try to get him in one of those good stretches.”

This is like the more traditional version of Joe Maddon sticking a slumping player in the leadoff spot, which always struck me as a weird little foible that worked out simply because the lineup as a whole was so good. Counsell has a similar luxury, especially when a catcher who probably wasn’t among anyone’s top three offseason targets at the position is mashing well enough to bat cleanup. So while there’s merit to the idea that the order may not be all that important in any one game, sometimes you need to shuffle things up as a way of hitting the reset button.

Is that what happened for Swanson on Tuesday night? We won’t know for a while yet, but presenting him with the challenge of working his way back to a higher spot in the lineup can’t hurt. Now, if we can just get Counsell to stop batting Justin Turner third or fourth.

Ed. note: I wanted to use an image of Swanson, but the AP doesn’t have any from the game in question. As such, I felt I should add a little more on Kelly. Among 300 MLB hitters with at least 50 plate appearances this season, he leads the way in OBP (.524), SLG (.891), ISO (.522), wOBA (.568), and wRC+ (268). Not too bad.