Greg Allen leads off tonight while Francisco Lindor slots in the cleanup spot for the second night in a row. Meanwhile, Erik Gonzalez is hitting .360 in the ninth spot. There is reason to be concerned about Gonzalez’s BABIP as noted in the comments of Matt R. Lyon’s article earlier today. My counterpoint is that it isn’t Gonzalez’s fault that he’s smoking everything. His average exit velocity is 91.6 MPH, and he’s hitting line drives.
Do I think .450 is a sustainable BABIP? No, but Baseball Savant still says his expected slash in limited time is .293/.340/.446. That puts him in the top half of 2nd baseman in all of baseball. The same metrics also suggest that if Jason Kipnis had played blackjack all season instead of baseball and had the same luck the dealer would turn up a face card pretty much every hand. Regression never sleeps for long.
Anyway, baseball.