Walt Weiss “leans on personal history” for lineup choices in Game 2 of Wild Card Series

Game 1 hero Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies have both moved up in the lineup and while both of them did perform in Game 1, they've moved p because of their performance against Sánchez in the past as well. "I leaned a little bit on the personal history today, which you don't typically do unless there's a big enough sample," stated Weiss when he was asked about the his lineup choices today.

"I've hit Ozzie third against lefties a lot this year, over 180 ABs, I think, in that spot against lefties. So nothing major there," continued Weiss. "But with Michael [Harris II], Michael has had tough history. I think the two times we faced Sanchez this year, I gave Michael the day off. We had Lane Thomas at the time too, so a little different. And Michael is swinging the bat good, and I feel good about him being in there. But just move him down a few spots."

It's a bit of an astute move for Weiss to recognize that even if Harris has been performing lately, he's got to take the recent history into consideration. Harris has only gone 2-for-15 with 10 strikeouts against Sánchez over the course of his career. Again, you don't want to take Harris's bat out of the lineup considering how well that he's been going and how much of an impact player he is but it also makes sense that they don't want to give Sánchez as many chances as possible to get one over on Harris again.