Slumping Rollins Benched for Three Games

Finally, after weeks of terrible performance, Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel has benched shortstop Jimmy Rollins. Rollins, the so-called catalyst for the Phillies offense, sat out Thursday and Friday nights’ games in hopes to correct his ailments at the plate. The result for the Phillies: a 10-4 loss against the Tampa Bay Rays and 5-0 loss at the hands of the Blue Jays. J-Roll also sat out Saturday afternoon’s 10-0 blowout win over Jays as well.

Rollins, who set the NL on fire in his 2007 MVP season, is batting a frigid 0.211 and has an on base percentage only slightly warmer at 0.254. You don’t need to be a baseball statistician to know those are inexcusable numbers for a person batting first for a defending world champion, or for that matter, any lineup. This kind of output wouldn’t even fly in Washington, where the Nationals are an embarrassing 16 games out of first place and it isn’t even July.

Throughout the 2009 campaign, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel has said that he is sticking by his player. Manuel has, however, dropped Jimmy to sixth in the batting order on several occasions already this season to take some of the pressure off of him. This experiment has worked, but just when everyone seems to think the struggling shortstop is okay and is put back in the top spot, another slump happens. When Jimmy returns from his benching, which is supposed to be in Sunday’s final game against the Blue Jays, maybe it is time for the Phillies manager to move Rollins towards the bottom of the lineup for more than just a couple of games.

The job of a leadoff man is to set the table for the rest of the lineup. Above all, batting first means that a hitter needs to get on base by any means necessary. Batting in the one-hole also requires patience and discipline. It entails taking a few pitches at the start of a game to let your teammates see just what the opposing pitcher has to offer. It also requires the hitter to make good contact, hit line drives, and, in the words of fictional manager Lou Brown to Willie Mays Hayes, “keep the ball on the ground.”

With that in mind, J-Roll is the antithesis of how a real leadoff hitter should perform. Ever since he first suited up in red pinstripes, Rollins has always had a poor approach to batting first in this lineup. Jimmy typically swings at the first pitch, which shows zero sign of patience or discipline. Consequently, he doesn’t walk much. His 16 walks are a disgrace for a leadoff hitter and are five walks fewer than the eighth hitter, catcher Carlos Ruiz. To compare Jimmy’s walks with his counterpart in this weekend’s series, Blue Jays shortstop Marco Scutaro, is not even fair. Scutaro has 49 walks and has an on base percentage of 0.393. Lastly, Jimmy is not making good contact either. His strikeouts double his walks, and his pop-ups are enough to make you want to choke him through the television or at least tell him to give you 20 push-ups.

Being a leadoff hitter also requires the player to steal bases. While this was one of the strong points for Rollins in the past, even that stat has fallen off this year. He only has 10 stolen bases out of 15 attempts. If you aren’t getting on base, then you can’t steal them.

Even with the struggling Rollins, the slumping Phillies, who are 2-8 in their last 10 games, are somehow miraculously still in first place. Granted their hold on the division and rival Mets is only by a half a game going into Saturday, they are still in the leaders’ circle. The Phillies, if they wish to repeat last year’s glory, are certainly going to need more production out of Rollins for the rest of the season, whether it is batting leadoff, in the sixth-hole, or maybe even lower.
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