A’s Pennington, Rosales in the heat of battle
By Joseph Lopez
The A’s will most likely open up 2010 with Cliff Pennington at shortstop, however, there is still a chance that newcomer, Adam Rosales will assume the position come Opening Day. Currently, both Pennington and Rosales are competing for the starting role, but A’s manager, Bob Geren has given Pennington a slight advantage. It seems Geren is giving the edge to Pennington, who played in 60 games with the A’s last season and hit .279/.342/.418 with 4 HR and 21 RBIs. So far, Pennington has gone 4-for-14 in 7 spring training games (.286/.500/.500, 1 RBI). In comparison, Rosales is hitting .450/.560/.700, with 1 HR and 2 RBIs. In his last start, Rosales went 3-for-3 with an RBI.
So, Pennington doesn’t seem to be such a lock after reviewing what Rosales has done this spring. In fact, if Rosales can keep up his high level of play, he could find himself starting come Opening Day. Below is a closer look at both players and their career stats:
Player AB HR RBI BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG OPS
Pennington 307 3 30 32 64 11 .267 .341 .378 .719
Rosales 105 4 21 27 50 2 .212 .296 .309 .605
In other A’s related news, Eric Chavez is said to be progressing nicely this spring. So far, Chavez is hitting .286/.286/.857 with 2 HRs and 4 RBIs in five spring starts. If healthy, Chavez is expected to serve as the A’s utility player. He is expected to share time at first-base with Daric Barton, and play a little bit of third, short and possible the outfield. Chavez is also expected to share some time with Jack Cust as the team’s DH. It’s refreshing to see Chavez performing so well this spring, since he’s coming off another season-ending surgery. Also relatively good news is that he’s performing better than he did last spring. Last year, Chavez hit .208/.310/.810 with 2 HR and 6 RBIs. If healthy, Chavez should provide the A’s with some much need thunder.
Also off to hot start is catcher, Kurt Suzuki. Suzuki is currently hitting .333/.333/.611 with 1 HR and 5 RBIs. If he can repeat what he did last year for the A’s (.274/.313/.421, 15 HR and 88 RBIs), then Oakland has a shot at capturing the American League West in 2010.
Sorry for the short post (341 words), but I should have two or three posts up by tomorrow. Up Next: A’s Previews (Kevin Kouzmanoff, Daric Barton, Coco Crisp) and much more!