Out of Order

By Marky Billson

In the first month of the season Pittsburgh Pirates manager John Russell experimented with batting the pitcher eighth in an attempt to get more runners on base for the top of his order after the first inning.

Russell is the first Pirates manager to bat the pitcher anywhere but ninth since Bobby Bragan attempted to revolutionize baseball's batting order during his tenure as Bucs skipper from 1956-57.

Bragan, who passed away last January, noted that over the course of a season the first- hitter in a batting order will come to bat perhaps 50 more times over the course of a season than the player batting fourth.

As such, on August 18, 1956, Bragan began batting the pitcher seventh, with 19-year-old rookie second baseman Bill Mazeroski, a .243 hitter in 1956, usually bringing up the rear of the Bucs' lineup card.

Bragan routinely shuffled the first six spots of his order during his experiment.

Five different players—Frank Thomas, Dale Long, Bill Virdon, Lee Walls and Bob Skinner—batted leadoff while his pitchers hit seventh for the next 20 games, with the Pirates recording an 8-11-1 record during this stretch. Pittsburgh would finish 66-88-1 in 1956.

Bragan tried batting starting pitcher Luis Arroyo eighth and Mazeroski ninth in the second game of the 1957 season, a 6-1 loss at Brooklyn, but then abandoned the experiment. Pitchers would bat ninth in every lineup the Bucs had for the next 52 years.

Why did Bragan stop?

"The sportswriters started getting on me," he told this reporter in an interview two years ago.

Which is not surprising, since the Pirates opened 1-8 in 1956.

Bragan stopped using the order one game after leadoff hitter Virdon went 5-for-5 but failed to drive in or score a run in a 3-2 victory at Brooklyn.

In Bragan's attempt to turn the leadoff spot into an RBI position, Pirates leadoff batters drove in just three runs in those 21 games.

The Pirates were 10-14 when batting their pitcher eighth this season until Russell stopped using this lineup on May 2.