Almora Jr. out, Heyward in CF in Maddon’s Opening Day Cubs lineup – The Athletic

Almora Jr. out, Heyward in CF in Maddons Opening Day Cubs lineup

ST. LOUIS By now, everyone knows how Cubs manager Joe Maddon makes out his lineup: At Starbucks, with his iPad.

Kind of basic, but it works for him.

(Id be the hipster manager, using a Le Pen to write it out in my Field Notes.)

You can imagine the rush he got, not from a carmel macchiato, but the reality of penciling in Kyle Schwarber at the top of a lineup and Javier Baez at the bottom.

And what do you know, Jason Heyward is the Opening Day center fielder a year late.

More than five hours before Opening Day, the Cubs released Maddons first lineup that had Schwarber in left field, Ben Zobrist hitting cleanup and playing right field and Heyward in center field. That allowed Maddon to start Baez at second base. New center fielder Albert Almora Jr. might want to get used to platooning not only with Jon Jay, but also Heyward in order to get Baez into the lineup.

Schwarber, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo as the first three batters of an inning is certainly imposing for any starting pitcher. After that comes Zobrist, a skilled contact hitter with doubles power, Addison Russell comes next, followed by Heywards New Swing, Willson Contreras, Jon Lester and Baez.

Maddon will mix and match his lineup all season because he has a deep, versatile bench, which makes the late-inning situations all the more interesting as he can sub liberally without losing much offensively or defensively.

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Almora Jr. out, Heyward in CF in Maddon's Opening Day Cubs lineup - The Athletic