In the midst of his struggles a year ago, Chipper Jones said even he didn’t know why manager Bobby Cox was still hitting him in his usual third spot. Here it is a year later, he’s feeling good at the plate, he’s getting healthy again, and he’s batting sixth in the lineup for the first time since 1997.
Careful what you “wish” for?
“You’ve got a couple guys in the lineup that are swinging it real good, and you want to keep them up there,” said Jones, who returned to the lineup Tuesday after missing a game with a sore left knee. “And I get it. ... We’ve got to go with what’s working.”
With the return of Brian McCann from the disabled list, manager Fredi Gonzalez wanted to keep both hot-hitting Dan Uggla (fourth) and Freddie Freeman (fifth) high in the order. He talked it over with Jones last week in Miami, giving him the courtesy of running it past him first.
“I said ‘Hey, when Mac comes back, what do you think about [hitting sixth],’” Gonzalez said. “He goes ‘I don’t care. Hit me second if you want.’”
Gonzalez kidded Jones that if he wanted to hit second, he’d have to learn how to bunt. (Jones has three sacrifice bunts in 18 years in the majors.)
Standing by decision
The Braves’ walk-off win Monday night took the heat off Gonzalez for a decision he made in the sixth inning, and Tim Hudson knows it.
Gonzalez let Hudson hit for himself, with the Braves trailing 3-2 and runners first and third with one out. Hudson popped out trying to bunt on a safety squeeze, and the Braves didn’t score in the inning.
“It was brutal from my end,” Hudson said. “I just screwed it up. I should have just got the bunt down, not tried to worry about showing [bunt] too early. ... [Gonzalez] went with his heart right there, and I let him down.”
Gonzalez stuck by his decision. “It was a little bit more than heads or tails,” he said.
Among the factors, Gonzalez said, were his trust in Hudson’s ability to handle the bat, the fact that he had thrown only 82 pitches and might be able to go eight or even nine innings, and that Gonzalez wanted a rested bullpen with rookie Randall Delgado pitching Tuesday night.
Those were his concerns, not the kind of criticism he might get. “If I worry about that, it would be time to retire,” he said.
Prado’s struggles
When you’re Martin Prado and you’re hitting .275 on the season, you’re feeling for it.
The career .307 hitter, who expects big things from himself, said: “When you’re lost, you’re lost.”
By normal standards, Prado isn’t lost. He singled to drive in a run in the ninth inning in Monday’s 5-4 win. He had hit .288 (13-for-45) with a double, a triple, a homer and six RBIs over his previous 10 games entering Tuesday.
But Prado said he has struggled to find his aggressiveness, while hitting .268 with three homers and 12 RBIs since coming off the disabled list for a staph infection after the All-Star break.
After convincing himself two weeks ago that his swing was going bad, Prado is giving himself a break. He got there by watching video from last season. “Last year there were a lot of times I got hits with a bad swing,” Prado said. “And this year I put a good swing on the ball, and I hit it right at them. ... They’re not missing pitches against me.”
No on six-man
Gonzalez said after kicking around the idea of using a six-man rotation, he has decided against it. He said it would have made more sense had Tommy Hanson been healthy to start this 17-game stretch, but he is on the DL with a shoulder strain. Rather than keeping Mike Minor in the rotation and giving each starter an additional day off, he has Minor in line to pitch Tuesday against the Cubs if Hanson can’t go.
