Red Sox Rant: Hanley Ramirez, Chris Young should not be in the lineup

Once again, Red Sox manager John Farrell chooses to take on a left-handed starting pitcher with Chris Young and Hanley Ramirez featured prominently in his lineup. I’ve had enough.

I’ll preface this by saying I’ve never fully been on the #FireFarrell bandwagon. While I’m not his biggest fan and think the Boston Red Sox often win in spite of him, I still believe he’s a more than adequate manager capable of leading this team.

*Extremely Stephen A. Smith voice* HOWEVER – tonight’s lineup really got to me. As the Red Sox beat writers began flooding my Twitter timeline with the starting nine that would be taking on the lowly Oakland A’s tonight I grew more and more enraged with every passing tweet. Behold, what your 1st place Boston Red Sox are running out onto the field tonight.

If you haven’t already guessed where my anger stems from, it comes from the fact that John Farrell CONTINUES to run out Chris Young and Hanley Ramirez against left-handed starters. Not only is it that he continues to feature them against LHP, it’s the fact that he’s placed them both in arguably the two most important spots in the lineup by having them bat second and fourth respectively.

“But, Liam!”, you might be thinking, “didn’t you see the Globe’s Pete Abraham tweet this out??”

And yes – I’ll admit – I did see that tweet and it brings me some form of comfort during this difficult time. I also acknowledge that for his career, CY has a line of .262/.361/.466 against lefties, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s only hit .187/.302/.264 against them this year. At this point, I can’t see his fortunes changing on September 12. He is what he is this year, and what he is not is someone who the Red Sox should be running out there against a lefty when the games matter more than ever.

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Now we come to Hanley. For Hanley, it’s a tale similar in scope to Young’s, if not worse. Over the course of his entire career, Hanley has hit LHP to the tune of .297/.378/.523. This year, he’s posted an abysmal line of .191/.309/.415 against them. Flat out ugly.

For both Hanley and Young at this point, it’s a case of both players having been given enough opportunities to succeed against LHP. Quite plainly they haven’t been able to deliver. Why Farrell still thinks it’s best to bat both players in the top half of the lineup in the midst of a pennant race is just astounding to me. I can’t wrap my head around it. At this point, he’s just being stubborn or ignorant, or both.

If I were Farrell my lineup tonight would have looked something like this:

1. Pedroia (2B)
2. Bogaerts (SS)
3. Betts (RF)
4. Moreland (1B)
5. Devers (3B)
6. Leon (C)
7. JBJ (CF)
8. Ramirez (DH)
9. Benintendi (LF)

It’s not even hard to come up with something better than what Farrell has! I simply used these stats provided by Boston Sports Info’s Twitter account.

It’s a flat out farce for a team that’s clinging to their AL East lead to be running out a lineup such as the one they are tonight against a team they should pummel in the Oakland A’s.

Next: Eduardo Nunez out with knee sprain

But hey, what do I know? With the way baseball works they’ll probably crank out 12 runs on 18 hits tonight with Young and Ramirez at the heart of it all.

Anyway, this rant has ended. Let’s hope I’m wrong about tonight’s lineup.