Castillo finally gets the nod.
Stating the obvious, but it's pretty hard to be enthused about any kind of lineup configuration. I think Vogelbach will get going, but even though I get the OBP logic, I don't like him leading off. Who knows if Allen would have hit the ground running, but we need a little chaos on the basepaths.
The lineup would be a lot more appealing to be excited about if we had Cruz with the team and Castillo playing every day. Hopefully at least Hayes might be able to run with a leadoff role, and we can try out something different going forward. I'm sure Shelton is going to run out a ton of different lineups.
For what it's worth, though he has had some Ks in the early going, Cruz looks totally locked in at the plate in AAA to me -- he is barely getting much to work with, but he's working counts and not biting on bad pitches or pitches he can't do much with. Two of his Ks were borderline strike three calls, and I think overall he is really not swinging and missing much, which together with not being too aggressive, is what you want to see out of Cruz, though it's not like anyone really thinks he needs much work on offense (though again for what it's worth, I'm more tuned in to see that, since I just don't see what the difference is with defense besides getting reps).
