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Cardinal fan and Allen Craig owner checking in here on this; I hope it helps. Matheny is a new manager, so we can't know for sure, but I bet Craig will get his atbats, not quite full time, but close.
Craig's defense at 2B is quite rough and the Cardinals pretty much given up on his bad hands at 3B (a Freese injury would be good news for Carpenter, not Craig, I'd wager). Craig is too slow to play CF. But I agree he'll get five games at 2B if everyone else ends up healthy...I don't see him being the starting 2B, however - last year, Craig stood around awkwardly but fairly harmlessly somewhere between the middle of the diamond and Albert Pujols mostly (exclusively?) when lefty Jaime Garcia pitched (since the opponents would be sending nearly all righties to the plate)
To crack the starting lineup, Craig just needs one of (Berkman/Beltran/Holliday) to be injured at any given time, and each of those guys will get a day off here and there. Or if Jay gets injured, I'd guess they'd go Schumacher full time in CF, opening up more atbats for Craig one way or another - in RF with wishful thinking Beltran moving to CF, or some more starts at 2B.
So worst case for Craig, if all the old men are healthy and the Cardinals aren't on the road with AL teams, he'll still likely get 3 starts per week, plus pinch hitting when he doesn't start.
Craig's defense at 2B is quite rough and the Cardinals pretty much given up on his bad hands at 3B (a Freese injury would be good news for Carpenter, not Craig, I'd wager). Craig is too slow to play CF. But I agree he'll get five games at 2B if everyone else ends up healthy...I don't see him being the starting 2B, however - last year, Craig stood around awkwardly but fairly harmlessly somewhere between the middle of the diamond and Albert Pujols mostly (exclusively?) when lefty Jaime Garcia pitched (since the opponents would be sending nearly all righties to the plate)
To crack the starting lineup, Craig just needs one of (Berkman/Beltran/Holliday) to be injured at any given time, and each of those guys will get a day off here and there. Or if Jay gets injured, I'd guess they'd go Schumacher full time in CF, opening up more atbats for Craig one way or another - in RF with wishful thinking Beltran moving to CF, or some more starts at 2B.
So worst case for Craig, if all the old men are healthy and the Cardinals aren't on the road with AL teams, he'll still likely get 3 starts per week, plus pinch hitting when he doesn't start.
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