Phillies Lineup Thursday Could Be the Same One as Opening Day
By John Town
Pete Mackanin’s lineup Thursday could very well be the one that the Phillies send out on Opening Day next week against the Reds.
Opening Day is just days away now and the Phillies are wrapping up spring training games Friday before they make their way back up north to start the regular season. Thursday and Friday’s games will be the warm-up before the season actually starts.
The lineup manager Pete Mackanin laid out for Thursday’s game against the Yankees could very well be the one that he uses for the team’s first game in Cincinnati.
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- 2B Cesar Hernandez (S)
- LF Howie Kendrick (R)
- CF Odubel Herrera (L)
- 3B Maikel Franco (R)
- RF Michael Saunders (L)
- 1B Tommy Joseph (R)
- C Cameron Rupp (R)
- SS Freddy Galvis (S)
- RHP Jerad Eickhoff (R)
All you have to do is switch out Eickhoff for Jeremy Hellickson, this year’s Opening Day starter, and this may be the lineup you see Opening Day.
This would also be the lineup Mackanin would go to if he doesn’t have to use any bench players.
This lineup offers a strong mix of right and left-handed batters. There is only one back-to-back sequence of players that bat on the same side, and that doesn’t come until later on in the order.
The speed is also concentrated at the top of the order with Hernandez and Herrera at one and three. Those two are the only real base-stealing threats in the lineup, so once you get past those two the Phils really aren’t very threatening on the bases.
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However, they make up for that lack of speed with home-run potential. Every player from Herrera on offers the potential to crank a home run, even when you get to the bottom of the order with Rupp and Galvis.
Just to see how different this year’s lineup is compared to last year, here’s the lineup that Mackanin put together on Opening Day in 2016:
- 2B Cesar Hernandez
- CF Odubel Herrera
- 3B Maikel Franco
- 1B Ryan Howard
- C Carlos Ruiz
- LF Cedric Hunter
- RF Peter Bourjos
- SS Freddy Galvis
- RHP Jeremy Hellickson
Next: Five Phils Storylines for 2017
This year, the Phils have four new players in their Opening Day lineup, and there’s definitely the possibility it could all change again in 2018.