Wait a minute, and Victor Martinez?
Though the team has not yet announced why their first baseman/catcher who is currently on fire will not play Tuesday, it's probably due to the fact that he took a pair of spikes to the back of the knee Sunday afternoon. While he was able to play in the nightcap, he may not have felt so good waking up Monday or, apparently, Tuesday.
The reason the speculation leads to some sort of lingering pain from Sunday is that Martinez has essentially owned Angels starter John Lackey in his career. In 25 plate appearances, Martinez is 10-for-21 (.476) with a double and three walks against him, by far the best numbers against Lackey of any other Red Sox.
On top of that fact, Martinez was riding a 15-game hitting streak in which he has been batting .358 with a homer and 12 RBIs.
In the absence of both Youkilis and Martinez, Jason Bay will move up to the cleanup spot, J.D. Drew will bat third, with Casey Kotchman starting at first base and batting seventh. The complete Red Sox lineup is below:
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. J.D. Drew, RF
4. Jason Bay, LF
5. David Ortiz, DH
6. Mike Lowell, 3B
7. Casey Kotchman, 1B
8. Jason Varitek, C
9. Alex Gonzalez, SS
Kotchman has struggled mightily at the plate in his time with the Red Sox, batting just .188 in 48 at-bats. Kotchman's not exactly a Hall of Fame slugger, but the average is well below his career mark of .269 (which is, coincidentally, his current average for 2009 with Boston and Atlanta).
Gonzalez, meanwhile, has been just the opposite, hitting .286 with four homers and 11 RBIs in 91 at-bats. The batting average is roughly 40 points higher than his career mark of .247, and he's hit more home runs with Boston than he did in more than twice as many games for Cincinnati, where he hit three in 243 at-bats.
Another theory for the absence of Martinez could be that with Daisuke Matsuzaka on the mound, Terry Francona wanted to put his best defensive team on the field, but the .998 career fielding percentage at first for Kotchman probably isn't convincing enough for the manager to play him over Youkilis (.997 at first).
