After saying Friday that it would be a “tough fit” to have hot-hitting Tommy La Stella bat second, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said he considered doing precisely that Saturday against the Angels. He ended up keeping the rookie second baseman in the seventh spot and B.J. Upton in the 2-hole.
Gonzalez said Friday that he didn’t want to bat La Stella second because it would give the Braves three left-handed hitters in the top three spots, making them vulnerable against lefty specialists. And he didn’t want to move either leadoff hitter Jason Heyward or No. 3 hitter Freddie Freeman from the spots they’ve batted in all season.
But with the Angels having no healthy lefty reliever, Gonzalez considered moving La Stella to the 2-hole.
“I thought about it today because they don’t have a left-hander out of the bullpen,” Gonzalez said. “But you get what you want out of the top of the order, then you get nothing at the bottom. So it’s kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. At least with Tommy with Tommy in the seventh hole you can keep the line moving a little bit.”
Before Saturday, La Stella hit .367 (18-for-49) with four RBIs, four walks and five strikeouts his first 14 major league games since being called up from Triple-A, including seven multi-hit games. He had only three strikeouts in his first 13 games before striking out twice Friday.
La Stella was 5-for-12 (.417) with runners in scoring position before Saturday, including 3-for-5 with two outs.
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