Game after game and day after day, Braves managers were content to pencil their pitchers into the familiar ninth lineup spot for 70 straight years.
But that reflex was finally challenged on Monday night, when Fredi Gonzalez made the decision to bat Jair Jurrjens eighth in a 5-3 loss to Washington.
Why did he get his inner Tony La Russa on? Gonzalez said it was a matter of wanting to bookend his lineup with speed ? Jose Constanza in the ninth spot, Michael Bourn in the first ? and create a back-to-back attack when it flipped.
"If everything's right it's OK because you almost have two leadoff guys," Gonzalez said. "You can use Constanza in the nine hole and you can steal bases, whereas if you put him in the eighth hole with the pitcher (behind him), you almost bog him down a little bit."
Gonzalez's move didn't really pay off. Though Constanza went 2 for 3, he was caught stealing during his only attempt. Jurrjens, meanwhile, went 0 for 2.
It did, however, create a great opportunity to rewind several decades and remember a unique baseball moment. According to Elias Sports Bureau, the last Braves pitcher to hit eighth was knuckleballer Jim Tobin (above), who did the deed in an Aug. 12, 1941 game when the franchise was in Boston. Tobin, known as "Old Ironsides," was famous for a few things. He threw a no-hitter in 1944, continued pitching during World War II despite a high draft status and finished his career as a pitcher on the 1945 World Series champion Detroit Tigers. He is, however, best known for his May 13, 1942 game against the Chicago Cubs, when he hit three homers while batting ninth ? the only pitcher in major league history to hit three homers in one game.
Because you're just dying to read some old newspaper clippings, here's the account of that contest from the United Press International�(via Google News):
Mathew Safford Atlanta Falcons Minnesota Vikings Washington Wizards Julius Peppers
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