Opening Day lineup revealed

March 31, 2011|Peter Abraham, Globe Staff

From Houston, Mike Vega reports this will be the lineup tomorrow:

Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Crawford LF
Youkilis 3B
Gonzalez 1B
Ortiz DH
Cameron RF
Saltalamacchia C
Scutaro SS

That's a proactive Opening Day lineup by Terry Francona as J.D. Drew sits against C.J. Wilson. Drew is 1 for 6 against Wilson. Cameron is 0 for 3 but at least is righthanded. Lefties hit .144 with a .400 OPS (yes, .400) against Wilson last season.

Had Francona really had game-planned against the lefty, he could have done something like this:

Scutaro SS
Crawford LF
Pedroia 2B
Youkilis DH
Gonzalez 1B
Cameron RF
Lowrie 3B
Varitek C
McDonald CF

But Opening Day does mean something to certain players and it can be best to put people where they would normally be. But if this was Wilson on July 1 instead of April 1, you'd probably see all the righthanded hitters in there. The guy is death on lefties.