Lineup shuffling

A first glance at Bobby Higginson’s numbers this month to date are pretty reassuring. He’s hitting .345/.444/.476. He’s also scored 16 runs during the month so far. What is troubling is his lack of RBI, for the month he only has 7. Frankly I don’t know if it’s because he’s not hitting well with men on base, or if he just isn’t having opportunities with men on base. I suspect it is a little bit of the former and a whole lot of the latter. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to dig into this deeper right now. However, I do know that the hitters occupying the 1-2 slots, Torres/Kingsale/Santiago/Infante all seem to bunt more than they swing away. I know that Tram has been handcuffed with very little production out of most of the order-which makes finding a good lineup futile. However, with Pena starting to emerge from his slump, Young hitting better, the emergence of the Kevin Witt/Craig Monroe platoon, and Eric Munson’s plate discipline, it may be time to shuffle the lineup. Why not move Munson to the number 2 spot in the order. Sure, his .301 OBA isn’t particularly impressive, but neither is Santiago’s .297 or Infante’s .285. Also, at least Munson is working the count more. He’s averagine 3.92 pitches/plate appearance compared to 3.80 for Infante and 3.22 for Santiago. I know you are giving up some speed, but speed on the bench isn’t particularly useful.