#lineup-strategy

#lineup-strategy

They'll get rolling at some point, maybe even this afternoon. I don't care a lick about their record, but it would be nice to see some more offense. To that end, it's been nice to see aggressive baserunning in the early going. That's by design, as third base coach Quintin Berry explained during Friday's game. Those overarching strategic choices are what I'm paying attention to right now, and I like what I've seen so far.

One thing the sabermetric revolution has taught us is that batting order doesn't matter all that much. At least, not in the traditional sense of putting a speedy runner at the the top, someone who can handle the bat and move him over second, and power hitters in the middle. The general consensus now is that a team's best hitter should hit second with a high-OBP hitter in front of him.

So, during a timeout, assistants Terry Stotts and Chris DeMarco made a suggestion. Butler subbed in for Will Richard at the 4:21 mark of the fourth quarter, Green took the place of Brandin Podziemski with 3:50 to play, and besides a few seconds on the final possession of regulation, the five-man lineup closed out the final 8 minutes, 50 seconds of what turned into a 137-131 overtime win.

The Vegas Golden Knights made arguably the biggest headline of the offseason acquiring star forward Mitch Marner. Now, it's time to figure out how to arrange the top six in order to put the strongest lineup on the ice for opening night. Head coach Bruce Cassidy has quite the task in front of him with a seemingly endless number of line combinations that could reasonably play together.

The Red Sox are continuing to utilize a lineup full of right-handed bats against left-handed pitching, featuring Nate Eaton, Romy Gonzalez, Rob Refsnyder, Trevor Story, and Ceddanne Rafaela prominently placed.