With Brian Roberts rehabbing a slight disk herniation, it's probably fair to wonder who would be the leadoff guy if he needs a break, but manager Dave Trembley isn't ready to tackle that question...or very many others that relate to who plays and who doesn't during both the exhibition season and the regular season.
He bristled when I asked him about Felix Pie for my column in Sunday's print edition. (Check it out on the Web site tonight). He also seemed reluctant to discuss lineup contingencies during his afternoon news briefing on Friday.
"Everybody seems to want to talk about who's going to play and how much,'' he said. "I've been concentrating on the workouts and the drills and when we get to the games, I'll think about that."
If you want my opinion, I would think that the everyday player who makes the most sense as a fill-in leadoff man would be Adam Jones.
Most manager's focus on speed and on-base percentage when they pick their leadoff hitters, but there have been historical exceptions. Gene Mauch used Brian Downing as the leadoff man during some of the Angels' better seasons in the 1980s, because Mauch felt that on-base frequency was paramount. But the fact that his speediest outfielders were not great OBP guys probably had something to do with that.