Bobby V's Swap Of Pedroia, Ellsbury Shows Manager Won't Shy Away From Creativity

BOSTON (CBS) -- Bobby Valentine isn't wasting any time this spring. Just one game into the official action, he took Jacoby Ellsbury, believed to be the prototypical leadoff man, and batted him second. He took Dustin Pedroia, the prototypical No. 2 guy, and moved him to leadoff. It was a lineup change that might have made Terry Francona's head explode last year, but it was one that Valentine wanted to try as soon as possible.

And he did it with good reason.

"Just about those two, that situation is an interesting thing, just the right-left, as opposed to Pedroia and Ellsbury or Ellsbury and Pedroia," Valentine explained after Sunday's win over the Twins. "I would think if you polled 100 guys who talk about that and they wanted a guy to lead off an inning and have the second hitter batting, most of them would want a left-hander batting [second] if the first guy got on."

And why's that?

"If [the leadoff man] hits a double, it's a lot easier to advance him to third [with a lefty batting second]," Valentine said. "If [the leadoff batter] hits a single, it's a lot easier to advance him to third if [the lefty batting second] hits with a hole over there with a strength swing, rather than his less-than-strength swing."

Despite the well-reasoned thought process behind having Pedroia bat leadoff and Ellsbury second, don't expect Valentine to set any of his lineups in stone.

"It creates a bad mentality, to think you have one lineup and that lineup is the one that wins. It's a Little League mentality that should not exist at the highest level of baseball," Valentine said. "It's a wonderful talk show conversation about 'The' lineup, and then you [look at] the St. Louis Cardinals, the world championship run to the World Series, and you see in the playoffs and the World Series, they might have used the same lineup twice. So ... what are we talking about?"

It is a concept that is not altogether revolutionary but it is one that shows this year's Red Sox will be a lot of things, but they won't be stale. And neither will their manager.