Consistency needed for San Diego Padres in leadoff role – MLB News
The San Diego Padres are struggling to find the appropriate player for a consistent role as leadoff.
As Spring Training begins, the Padres are desperate to finalise their rotation and line-ups. However it seems that the team is struggling with the issue of putting the right player in the leadoff position.
Padres’ general manager is aware of the predicament and is looking to get the line-up right for the upcoming regular season. In 2010 the team tried nine different players for leadoff and they had mixed results without a clear cut player taking the role.
"We could never find the right leadoff guy," Hoyer said. "We could move a player into the leadoff hole and he wouldn't get on base. We would move him to seventh or eighth and he'd get on base. That was a constant frustration all year.
Players like David Eckstein, Chris Denorfia, Aaron Cunningham, Luis Durango, and Tony Gwynn were given the opportunity, but the results were not evident.
The Padres are really working hard at getting the perfect balance in their team as Spring Training will allow for a good place to try different combination of players. Also the fact that competition is fierce during the session, this gives some of the younger
players some much needed game time against top quality pitching and hitting from around the League.
San Diego is a tremendously talented team with immense potential. However as they struggle to find the right combinations and leadoff hitters, they have begun to hamper their own efforts. The main focus for the Padres is to of course win games. Getting the
balance of players to win and do so on a consistent basis seems to be a real issue that the team will be looking to solve in the coming weeks.
As time slowly runs out until the regular season begins, the Padres are mixing different combinations of players to try them out during Spring Training. Regardless of other issues, the main issue of finding a leadoff hitter is key to the success of any team
in the regular season. Every team is on the look-out to find that one player that can start the innings off with some strong hitting to put their opponents on the back-foot right from the start.
The Padres seem focused in finding the right leadoff combination and it will be interesting to see which players they designate for this important role in the team. San Diego will be looking to put in a decent performance during Spring Training and build
some much needed confidence in the team. As the regular season is right around the corner, the Padres will be hoping they can find their leadoff hitter.
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