Yesterday, we heard Doug Melvin dance around a question about the starting outfielders, essentially refusing to say that Corey Hart is the team’s right fielder. Today, Tom Haudricourt brings us his daily notes from the manager’s briefing and, guess what, Ken Macha isn’t sold on Hart being his Opening Day starter in right.
Ubaldo Jimenez will be starting the Opener for Colorado, and he’s been tough against right-handed hitters in his career, holding them to a .220/.301/.323 line. Last year he was even better than that, holding righties to a line of .206/.276/.309. The irony here is that Corey Hart was actually better against right-handed pitchers (.264/.336/.437) than he was against left-handed pitchers (248/.333/.356) last season.
Still, at this point, I don’t think many people would mind if Jim Edmonds was standing in right field to start the season. It’s just a matter if Edmonds will be with the team in time for the Opener — as Haudricourt noted, he left the team to attend to a family matter a couple days ago and hasn’t been in touch with the team to let them know when he’ll be back. I just find it hard to believe that Hart would be making $4 million to be the right-handed side of a platoon. We’ve already lived through this experience recently with Kevin Mench.
On the topic of Edmonds, take a few seconds to vote in our poll on the main page. How many games a week should Edmonds be starting this year?
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