Should Carl Crawford Move Up in Red Sox’ Batting Order?

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May 27, 2011

Should Carl Crawford Move Up in Red Sox' Batting Order? Apparently, when Carl Crawford bats sixth, he can't make an out.

That's only sort of an exaggeration, as the Red Sox' left fielder was penciled into the sixth spot the past two days and went 8-for-9 with two doubles, a triple, a homer and five RBIs. In the process, he's raised his average from .212 heading into Wednesday to .244 heading into Friday.

Not bad for two days' work.

Terry Francona has Crawford in the sixth spot again on Friday night in Detroit, looking to catch lightning in a bottle. The question is, with Crawford as hot as he is right now, should he be hitting higher in the order?

He's hitting .333 in the month of May, helping to cancel out the .155 average in April. See how he's hitting at different spots in the lineup in the table below, from baseball-reference.com.

Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Batting 1st 7 7 33 32 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 .094 .121 .125 .246
Batting 2nd 4 4 16 15 1 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 2 .200 .250 .200 .450
Batting 3rd 2 2 8 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 .000 .125 .000 .125
Batting 6th 2 2 9 9 5 8 2 2 1 5 0 0 0 0 .889 .889 1.889 2.778
Batting 7th 8 8 34 31 1 9 1 0 1 5 2 2 2 5 .290 .333 .419 .753
Batting 8th 25 25 103 99 15 24 5 1 1 9 3 0 3 20 .242 .272 .343 .615

There are known complications with moving Crawford up, such as shifting around Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis or David Ortiz. But if it's going to happen at some point, is now the time?

Should Carl Crawford Move Up in Red Sox' Batting Order?online surveys

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