Bob Melvin has put together his first lineup for the Oakland Athletics and he has made some interesting changes to the order. Jemile Weeks remains at the bottom of the order, but the most significant change is moving Cliff Pennington to the second spot and dropping David DeJesus to the bottom of the order. For the Ryan Sweeney fans out there, lefty Mark Buehrle is starting for the White Sox and Sweeney has significantly worse numbers against left-handed pitchers, thus the absence.
It's not exactly shocking to see such "sizable" changes to the A's lineup in Melvin's first game. Last year a writer at FanGraphs took a look at some lineup changes by new managers. While it's not exactly a scientific analysis, it's still interesting to note. It makes sense for a new person to place their their own stamp on the team and the easiest way to do that is through the starting lineup. We'll see if the change helps the A's offense.
Oakland Athletics
1. Coco Crisp CF
2. Cliff Pennington SS
3. Conor Jackson 1B
4. Josh Willingham LF
5. Kurt Suzuki C
6. Hideki Matsui DH
7. Adam Rosales 3B
8. David DeJesus RF
9. Jemile Weeks 2B
Chicago White Sox
1. Juan Pierre LF
2. Alexei Ramirez SS
3. Carlos Quentin RF
4. Paul Konerko 1B
5. A.J. Pierzynski C
6. Alex Rios CF
7. Adam Dunn DH
8. Omar Vizquel 3B
9. Gordon Beckham 2B