When Panda Comes Back

In a few days Pablo Sandoval will return from his his hamstring injury and take his place in an altered lineup.  Since The Panda last appeared on July 24th, Marco Scutaro and Hunter Pence have been added to manager Bruce Bochy's palette.  The question, thus, arises:  who does Panda's return push aside?

When Marty Lurie posed the question on KNBR's postgame show last night, he saw the lineup pressure threatening shortstop Brandon Crawford -- "do you let Scutaro and Arias handle the shortstop position and sit Crawford with Pablo coming back?" (or something like that).

Who Marty did not mention was Theriot.  You can understand why -- all season long Theriot has been touted as the "Veteran Presence", as the "Gamer".  And that's fine; he's been solid in the field, and his bat was a definite improvement over Burriss'.  But now, with Scutaro, the Giants have an opportunity to upgrade their offensive production from Second Base yet again.  Consider:

Extra Bases in 2012:
Miguel Cabrera - 73
Buster Posey - 71
Angel Pagan - 50
Pablo Sandoval - 45
Brandon Belt - 35
Gregor Blanco - 33
Brandon Crawford - 31
Ryan Theriot - 15

Put another way -- every how-many At Bats can we expect Giants' players to get an extra base?

AB per Extra Base:
Posey - 4.9
Sandoval - 5.2
Cabrera - 5.7
Belt - 7.0
Pagan - 7.8
Blanco - 8.8
(Cain - 9.6)
Crawford - 9.9
(Bumgarner - 12.5)
. . .
Theriot 19.3

If Buster goes 2 days without an extra base hit, it would be unfortunate, for Crawford 3 days.  Theriot, meanwhile, could easily go a week.  Deadly.

I can hear the protests of "he's your 2nd-place hitter, he can handle the bat, move runners along".  The reality, however, is that he produces Double Plays at a rate faster than anyone other than Marty's other candidate to push Crawford aside -- Joaquin Arias.

Think about that -- Theriot is more likely to be doubled up than your catcher whose ankle needs to be nursed.  More likely to be doubled up than your thirdbaseman who is 30+ pounds over his optimum weight.

Look, Crawford is no Ernie Banks.  He's making outs like the factory's burning down around him, but he's got some semblance of pop and (while none of these folks we're talking about -- Crawford, Scutaro, Theriot & Arias -- is a defensive slouch) by all reviews his fielding is beyond excellent.

A lineup with Scutaro and Theriot (or Arias) up the middle will gain you a bit offense and cost you defense.

Scutaro and Crawford, on the other hand, will give you the same (or greater) offensive gain and cost you nothing on the other end.