PITTSBURGH – With the Braves facing consecutive Pirates left-handed starters Wednesday and Thursday, manager Brian Snitker didn’t want to have left-handed-hitting Mallex Smith out of the lineup both days.
It wasn’t a difficult decision as to which day to play the rookie center fielder: Wednesday’s starter Francisco Liriano has long been known as an extremely difficult matchup for lefty batters and had held them to a .182 average and .212 slugging percentage before facing the Braves.
Thursday starter Jeff Locke entered with a .324 opponents’ average against lefties this season and .271 for his career, higher averages than he’s allowed against right-handed batters.
Smith didn’t play Wednesday and went 0-for-3 Thursday to drop his average to .074 (2-for-27) with two walks and 11 strikeouts against lefties, compared with .304 (21-for-69) against right-handers.
In his past 16 games before Thursday, Smith hit .347 (17-for-49) with four doubles, one triple, three homers, nine RBIs, nine runs, four steals and a .652 slugging percentage.
Former Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez had not used Smith against most lefties in recent weeks. Snitker, who took over as interim manager Tuesday after Gonzalez was fired, will continue for now to pick spots against those lefties that he thinks Smith might match up better against than others.
The Braves have used Ender Inciarte in center and Jeff Francoeur in left field against most lefties in recent weeks. On Thursday, Francoeur was in left, and Inciarte, who’s made an equal number of starts in left field and center field, was out of the lineup for the first time since returning from the DL on May 8.
Inciarte missed a month with a strained hamstring and started 11 consecutive games before Thursday.
“Just talking to the (coaches) who were up on all that, I didn’t want to sit (Smith) for two days,” Snitker said. “I think it’ll be good for Ender to rest his legs. I’m going to be aware of that, coming off the (hamstring) injury, just not wear him out; he did a lot of running last night, too. I’m sure he’s fine, it’s just more a precautionary type thing more than anything.”
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