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Minnesota Twins: Paul Molitor’s Lineup Switch Is A Great Sign

By Collin Kottke

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The Minnesota Twins finally won their second game of the season. It might have taken a little bit of much needed lineup construction, but it finally happened. Maybe a moment of inspiration hit Paul Molitor and it turned into the great reordering of the order that needed to happen.

Newly reacquired outfielder Torii Hunter was hitting fourth in the first handful of games and on Wednesday Hunter was moved up to the second spot in the lineup. Brian Dozier was flipped from second to fourth in the lineup and the move had some immediate benefits.

Right away in the bottom of the first, the top of the order scored a run to give the Twins a lead. From the cleanup spot, Dozier hit a sacrifice fly to score leadoff man Danny Santana.

The other runs for the Twins in their victory came via an Oswaldo Arcia two-run blast to centerfield.

The switch does one main thing: get Torii Hunter out of the cleanup spot where he never belonged. Hunter is still only batting .194 and probably shouldn’t be in the top half of the lineup, but being in the two-hole is a whole lot better than potentially killing runners on base.

It’s simply hard to judge this Twins right now other than the fact that they are bad. Joe Mauer is the only Twins player to have an average currently above .230, proving that the offense Is just another issue for this squad.

In a perfect world, Dozier isn’t the cleanup hitter, but Hunter should have never been placed in that position to start. The real takeaway is the positive that Paul Molitor is willing to make changes rather quickly if things aren’t working out right.

It only took seven games for a lineup change; changes that probably would have never happened with Molitor’s predecessor.

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