Giants lineup: Kelby Tomlinson gets first outfield start with Angel Pagan, Hunter Pence unable to play vs. Cubs
SAN FRANCISCO – Cubs left-hander Jon Lester has trouble throwing to bases and Kelby Tomlinson is one of the faster rabbits on the Giants roster.
Tomlinson is making his first career start as an outfielder and is batting third in the Giants’ lineup Saturday.
Don’t be so fast to make the hard correlation. There had to be more to it than that. Giants manager Bruce Bochy doesn’t just throw a player into an unfamiliar position to get a one-day matchup, even if that player spent a couple weeks taking fly balls in instructional ball last October.
Sure enough, the Giants have a couple outfielders who can’t go. Hunter Pence and Angel Pagan are both dealing with some hamstring soreness. Bochy said both players are available off the bench and should be able to play on Sunday, but we’ve heard this song and dance before.
For Pagan, his soreness is in the same left hamstring that already caused him to miss 11 games after he pulled it May 1. For Pence, it’s his right hamstring a little nearer to the back of the knee. Bochy said he noticed Pence hobbling down the line a bit in San Diego and asked him about it. Pence acknowledged it had bothered him but he was playable.
When he woke up Saturday morning, the right hamstring was a little tighter than before. So he gets a day.
Bochy also is giving Brandon Belt a day off and putting Buster Posey at first base, both to get a left-handed matchup for backup catcher Trevor Brown and to keep Brown paired with Matt Cain after they worked together so well in their previous outing in Arizona.
Matt Duffy moves down from third to fifth, but that’s not a demotion based on his current 6-for-42 dry spell. It’s to give Posey a bit more protection, Bochy said.
Besides, Duffy has hit all season at home. He’s batting .349 at AT&T Park and .122 on the road. (A contributing factor, maybe: right fielders often shade toward center here, and it seems to me that Duffy has lost a lot of hits on the road on lineouts down the right field line.)
Tomlinson told reporters that his last start in the outfield was “in middle school, maybe.”
The Cubs haven’t made any roster moves, but outfielder Jason Heyward is obviously not available after injuring himself on a first-inning catch Friday night.
