MILWAUKEE — A healthy Brandon Crawford was held out of the Giants’ lineup for a second straight game Friday, with rookie sensation Casey Schmitt making his second straight start at the position Crawford has occupied for more than a decade.
The decision, manager Gabe Kapler said, had more to do with Schmitt’s impressive play since being called up earlier this month.
“He’s not the easiest guy to take out of the lineup right now,” Kapler said Friday before their second game against the Brewers. “He’s doing a really nice job at shortstop and he’s having really good at-bats.”
While Schmitt is a natural third baseman, he has looked the part as a major-league shortstop, a position he only began playing in Double-A last season. At the plate, Schmitt’s aggressive approach has resulted in one of the strongest starts for a rookie in franchise history. Hitting safely in 13 of his first 15 starts, Schmitt recorded two more hits in Thursday’s series-opening win and drove in a pair of runs, going for extra bases for the seventh time. While cooling off somewhat from his red-hot start, Schmitt still took a .339 batting average and .855 OPS into Friday’s game, though he was still searching for his first walk after 62 plate appearances.
Casey Schmitt gets his second straight start at short for #SFGiants, while Brandon Crawford sits for a second day in a row. “He’s not the easiest guy to take out of the lineup right now,” Gabe Kapler said. pic.twitter.com/ujHwfx2PbB
— Evan Webeck (@EvanWebeck) May 26, 2023
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Crawford has started more games at shortstop than anyone in Giants history, and he’s in good company having logged more games exclusively at the position than all but three players in MLB history — Luis Aparicio, Ozzie Smith and Derek Jeter.
This season, however, he has been the third-worst shortstop in the majors, according to Defensive Runs Saved (minus-7), and is on pace for career lows in batting average (.172), on-base percentage (.252) and OPS (.575); his slugging …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
