CLEVELAND -- With two of his first four hitters in the lineup hitting .201 and .154, Terry Francona admitted that somewhere along the way his patience in regards to the lineup had crossed into being stubborn. Going into Sunday's game against Oakland, Francona has decided to shake things up.
Nick Swisher will bat sixth today and cleanup hitter Carlos Santana has been dropped to seventh in the finale of a three-game series. Mike Aviles will bat second and play shortstop as Asdrubal Cabrera is given the day off with Ryan Raburn batting cleanup. Yan Gomes also has the day off.
"I don't try to move the lineup much. I want to be respectful to our players," Francona said. "You get to the point though where you might be stubborn instead of patient.
"We talked for a long time about things. This is not a lineup that is going to be in place for the rest of the year but hopefully it can help jump start us a little bit and take the pressure off the guys who are struggling. "
Swisher has hit safely in his past three games but is batting .201 on the season. He has hit .252 in his career in the six spot. This will be the lowest that Swisher has been in the order with Cleveland. Of his previous 185 starts with the Indians, he had hit either second (101), third (12) or cleanup (72).
After batting .211 in April, Swisher has a .184 average in May. He is 4 for 22 with a home run and four RBI in his past six games.
Santana has struggled throughout the entire year. He has hit in five of the past six games (6 for 27) but hasn't shown any signs of consistently breaking out. Coming into the game, he's had only six at-bats at seventh with two hits.
"He looked in Anaheim like he was ready to get hot and then it went the other way. It's not clicking yet," Francona said. "He's too good a hitter where this won't change. It is a little less glaring when a guy is hitting lower.
"We're not giving up on anyone. Last night it was time to do something different. I try to stay away from thinking like we're going to give a guy another day or stuff like that. I don't think you make good decisions when you do it that way. You try to use the best judgment you can and not react on emotions. You use your staff and a lot of conversations. Idea is to make it better and not react to frustration because that doesn't help."
The Indians go into Sunday's game with Boston tied for the third-lowest batting average in the American League at .244 and are battng just .230 with runners in scoring position.
