Ever since the injury to Nick Johnson, there have been debates to who should be the right person to bat second. I am reminded of some very wise words, stats don’t lie. As you can see from the table below, Brett Gardner and Nick Johnson both have had the most AB in the 2 hole. Johnson having the better OBP — by .050 — but with Gardner having 8 more hits and thus almost .100 higher batting average. I do realize that Granderson has a .429 OBP, but that is over 12 at bats and is likely to go down with more time in the 2 hole.
| AB ? | R | H | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | BA | OBP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Gardner | 75 | 13 | 20 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 16 | .267 | .321 |
| Nick Johnson | 71 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 22 | 23 | .169 | .379 |
| Nick Swisher | 45 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 7 | .244 | .346 |
| Curtis Granderson | 12 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .333 | .429 |
| Marcus Thames | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .333 | .250 |
| Jorge Posada | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | .000 |
| Randy Winn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Greg Golson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Team Total | 207 | 37 | 48 | 6 | 19 | 4 | 36 | 50 | .232 | .352 |
If Swisher continues to hit the way he is, I don’t see why the Yankees would need anyone else to hit 2nd. Time will tell.
M. B. Rozell
Kevin Rozell
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