Ordonez's Return Will Cause Lineup Shuffle

It's three hours of sweat for manager Jim Leyland when he has Victor Martinez catching and Alex Avila as his designated hitter.

There's a chance he'll be sweating more decisions out with the return of Magglio Ordonez.

Three times now Leyland has switched his normal DH, Martinez, with his usual catcher, Avila, without disturbing their spots in the batting order. Martinez hits behind cleanup hitter Miguel Cabrera with Avila seventh or eighth.

"It drives me nuts," Leyland said of using Avila as his DH when Martinez catches. "I'm holding my breath for three hours.

"What a lot of people don't realize is it's hairy because if I have to take Victor out of a game, the pitcher hits right behind Cabrera.

"That's not a good feeling. I don't think Rick Porcello is much protection for Miguel Cabrera."

It didn't become an issue this time as Seattle hit three home runs in a 7-3 squashing of Detroit.

Detroit is the only team in the league that has the only two catchers it carries both in the lineup at the same time nearly all the time.

Martinez has adapted remarkably well to playing DH while Avila has the best stats of any catcher in the league. He can't catch every game, though, not in today's game.

"If you're not careful, he'll be swinging underwater by August," Leyland said. "I thought about playing Casper Wells and DH'ing Brennan Boesch, but Alex is feeling pretty good about himself right now. We'll see how it plays out."

Another issue surfaces Monday -- where to hit Ordonez in the batting order and how much to play him.

Leyland wouldn't commit even to whether he would play Ordonez as Detroit's series with Seattle wound up.

Boesch has been hitting extremely well in front of Cabrera so the manager might be loath to move him. On the other hand, he has a supposedly (finally) completely healthy right fielder who has operated out of the three-spot for years.

Ordonez deserves respect as a veteran player, but at the same time, performance has been an issue as he comes up next month on the one-year anniversary of his right ankle fracture.

"We need a guy like him in the clubhouse," Martinez said. "He's been around a long time in the game so it's always good having a guy like Magglio back.

"Who can say stuff like that (Magglio shouldn't return to the lineup because the club's playing well)? What Magglio's done for this organization, it's something that for me as a player you have to respect that a lot."

Leyland has said Ordonez will have to play when he returns. If he doesn't right off the bat, there's where the problem comes up again.

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