By Matt Snyder Throughout the offseason and spring, there was a large fan movement for the Red Sox to play Jed Lowrie over Marco Scutaro at shortstop. The rationale is pretty simple, actually. Lowrie is a better hitter, is only a slightly worse defensive player and is about 7 1/2 years younger than the 35-year-old Scutaro.
Considering the rough beginning by the entire Red Sox team, including the offense, games like Saturday will only help to fan the flames in favor of Lowrie.
In just his second start of the season, Lowrie went 3-4. He's hitting .364 with a .780 OPS in the exceptionally small 12-plate-appearance sample thus far. He did have a .907 OPS last season, though, in his limited time (197 plate appearances). Scutaro is just 3-21 with no extra base hits and one walk this season, giving him an anemic line of .143/.182/.143.
As the Red Sox scuffle and Terry Francona attempts to tweak the lineup and find something that works, it would behoove him to give Lowrie an extended look.
In the meantime, there will continue to be plenty of discussions on the matter , as the best argument to keep Scutaro in the lineup -- that he's a good clubhouse guy -- isn't really a good one.
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