Aoki/Gattis call only lineup question for opener
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — With Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Carlos Beltran and Nori Aoki expected back in the fold, the Astros’ Grapefruit League lineup Saturday against the Washington Nationals could serve as a preview of their opening-day order.
At the very least, Saturday’s should be the closest to an opening-day lineup Astros manager A.J. Hinch will have written to that point. With the team’s April 3 regular-season opener against Seattle less than 1½ weeks away, there isn’t much uncertainty about how Hinch will line up his deep pool of position players.
Presuming the Astros are at full strength, the biggest decision Hinch will have to make for opening day is whether he’ll play Aoki or Evan Gattis against Mariners righthander Felix Hernandez. Aoki would play left field and bat ninth if in the lineup. If Gattis plays, it would be as designated hitter (pushing expected five-hole hitter Carlos Beltran to left field) and probably in the seventh spot in the order.
The righthanded-hitting Gattis is 2-for-9 with a home run lifetime against Hernandez, while the lefthanded-hitting Aoki is 0-for-4. Given Beltran hasn’t had much time in left field this spring and because Gattis is sure to play later in the opening series when the Mariners start lefthanders James Paxton and Drew Smyly, we’re going to give Aoki the nod in this exercise.
With that in mind, here’s the Chronicle’s best guess at the Astros’ lineup to play behind expected opening-day starter Dallas Keuchel:
1. George Springer (RH), CF The Astros began the turnaround from their terrible start last season when Hinch moved Springer atop his lineup. The manager has left no doubt all offseason and spring that Springer will be back in the leadoff spot to begin this season.
2. Alex Bregman (RH), 3B The lefthanded-hitting Josh Reddick also is an option here to split up the righthanded bats, but it’s expected Hinch will ultimately opt for No. 2 in the two-hole. Bregman batted .284 with eight homers, 13 doubles, three triples and an .849 OPS in 183 at-bats when in the lineup as the Astros’ No. 2 batter his rookie season.
3. Jose Altuve (RH), 2B The third-place finisher in last year’s AL Most Valuable Player voting will be back in the run-producing role he operated out of from June 10 through the end of last season. 4. Carlos Correa (RH), SS After batting third during his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2015 and the beginning of last season, Correa settled into the cleanup spot last June. In his 91 games batting fourth, he averaged .289/.371/.475 and drove in 64 runs.
5. Carlos Beltran (SH), DH If you put Beltran’s stats with the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers on the 2016 Astros, the 39-yearold would have been their second-most productive offensive player.
6. Josh Reddick (LH), RF The Astros extracted a major league-worst .627 OPS from the No. 6 spot in their batting order last season. Reddick had a .749 OPS last year despite a bad second half with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
7. Yuli Gurriel (RH), 1B Gurriel comes into this season as a wild card, though it won’t take much for the Astros to improve on the .623 OPS they got from the No. 7 spot in the batting order last season. The decorated Cuban infielder may even bat ninth in games Gattis is DH and Beltran plays left field.
8. Brian McCann (LH), C Hinch joked with McCann at the outset of spring training that the No. 8 spot was simply a second cleanup hitter. McCann will provide much more pop than your average eighthole batter, having slugged at least 20 homers in nine consecutive seasons. All around, he was about a league-average hitter last year.
9. Nori Aoki (LH), LF The contact-oriented Aoki, who has spent most of his big league tenure as a leadoff man, figures to bat ninth whenever he’s playing and the Astros are at full strength.