Florida manager Jack McKeon flip-flopped the top of his batting order for Wednesday night's game, having Luis Castillo lead off and Juan Pierre bat second. The last time he had Castillo lead off and Pierre in the two-hole was July 7, 2004, against Pittsburgh.

 

Pierre has been struggling at the plate. He entered Wednesday's game batting .200 in his previous 21 games.

 

"I'm not consistently having good swings at the ball," Pierre explained. "I don't feel too bad and I'm not getting the hits. You know, sometimes you hit the ball hard and they seem to catch it, and other times you don't have good swings. In the past, when I didn't swing well, I always relied on getting lousy hits or high choppers and beat out infield hits -- and it just hasn't happened for me yet this season."

 

McKeon made the switch to try to jump-start the offense.

 

"I'm trying to get my leadoff guy on," McKeon said. "Castillo's got a pretty good on-base percentage -- he always has. He works the count. We'll go back to the old order if we ever get the guy going."

I thought speed never slumped :thumbdown :thumbdown

in the past, when pierre has struggled, it's been about bad luck. any time you depend on speed, you depend on catching some breaks - a bad bounce, an infielder in the wrong posittion, a misplayed grounder. past slumps have seemed to be about him just not getting those breaks.

 

this one has been different. he's putting the ball in the air a LOT. if he were hitting hard grounders that were just finding their way into the gloves of infielders, it would be easier to feel better.

 

then again, before this past May, he had hit over .290 in every month except one since the beginning of 2004. Another case, like Lowell, of a guy who hasn't just forgotten how to hit. it will come back to him. honestly, it's amazing that this team has had the success it has with Castillo being out, Lowell hitting lazy pop-ups every time he's up, and pierre not getting on base. imagine what will happen when those guys come around.