No Sunday lineup today, but I guess it's Marte's day to rest, not Dickerson's. Everybody else is in.
I may catch flak for this, but I think the outfield rotation remains a wise move. Given our position and how many wins we need to get, I understand the frustration with it, and I think that Hurdle probably shouldn't follow it to an absolute routine, but in general, I think it's not the disaster that seems implied. Dickerson is prone to a bit of streakiness and has not played a full season's worth of games in the field for a while in any case, Marte is on record as still feeling some soreness with the oblique, and Polanco might be the best power bat on the team at this point.
Polanco's really struggled, but there's not a lot of easy solutions to that. We need him to get going if we're going to climb back into things, and I think it's worth keeping in mind that he's been good in stretches, and had some of his struggles compounded with terrible luck. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that his batting average would be more passable if he hadn't had such terrible BABIP luck. Some of that is undoubtedly due to selling out for launch angle and hitting a bunch of popups, and then strikeouts flared up for him too, but in any case, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to let him continue to battle through this while we've also got other players who have similar injury concerns and streakiness.
I doubt it will happen, but I think Meadows should play a bit more, and generally that Hurdle should be more strategic with what lineup he uses when. So assuming we win today, Dickerson is slated for rest tomorrow. If we drop the game tomorrow, then unless he's caught fire, Polanco should probably see the bench Tuesday and Wednesday. Meadows can have his day down Thursday. And so on. It's not difficult to keep some kind of rotation going but also play matchups and hot streaks a bit, and default to the strongest lineup when we really need it.
Unfortunately, as we know, Hurdle doesn't really seem to have much of a strategic mindset, and seemingly does stuff on a total whim. But still, given the circumstances, I don't see the rotation as a huge issue, and I remain probably more confident than most that Polanco will start emerging out of it. He has in fits and starts with this new approach, and while I don't think batting average amounts to a lot, he's in danger of dropping below .200. But with Marte still on the mend a bit, I want to see him with the new stance for two more weeks. If he can't put anything together, then I think there's no choice but to drop him down to one or two starts a week for a bit. Marte in particular getting semi-often rest is not something to underrate. Besides Cervelli, he's probably our most important position player.