April 10th, 2014 at 6:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka Remember when everybody had Cuban sensation Alex Guerrero pegged to be the Dodgers opening day second baseman, even Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti?
Remember when Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said that he was fine with platooning several guys at second base until one of them proves that they deserve the everyday job?
By all accounts, soon-to-be 26-year-old converted shortstop Dee Gordon has done exactly that – on both sides of the ball.
Through the first 10 games that the Dodgers have played this season, Gordon has appeared in nine of them. He is hitting a team-leading .394 (13 for 33), is 2 for 5 against lefties (.400), has an on-base percentage of .432, has one home run, two doubles, four RBI’s and has stolen four bases out of five attempts. On defense Gordon has committed only two errors in 33 total chances for a fielding percentage of .939 which isn’t great, but the trade off is that he has excellent range and has gotten to several balls that no other Dodgers second baseman would have.
But in spite of all of this, Mattingly said on Wednesday that nothing has changed and that he will continue to platoon at second base depending on pitching match-ups.
“[Dee is] getting plenty of right handers right now, he’s getting plenty of playing time,” Mattingly said. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping him fresh, matching him up good and hopefully get him off to a good start. As we get into more games he’s going to have to stay sharp. We’ve got a lot of off days [in the next week]. As we start playing every day we’re going to need more of our bench to be playing. I’m not planning on playing anything different right now.”
Even though Gordon picked up three more hits on Wednesday night and is hitting a team-leading .394, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly plans to sit him whenever they face a left-handed starter.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)
By ‘not planning on playing anything different,’ Mattingly means that he will continue to start Justin Turner at second base whenever the Dodgers face a left-handed starter. Simply put, this means that regardless of how well Gordon is doing right now, especially offensively and even against left-handed pitching, he is still not the Dodgers everyday second baseman and by the look of things, he might never be.
Although Turner has done well at the position and is in every sense of the word ‘gritty,’ he is sitting squarely on the Mendoza Line with a .200 batting average and has a .200 OBP. He has also struck out four times in his 10 at bats and has yet to hit an extra base hit. He has also committed one error in 12 total chances for a rather dismal .917 FPCT.
It is certainly understandable for Mattingly wanting to keep his utility bench players sharp, but what ever happened to playing the hot hand? And make no mistake about it, Gordon’s hand (and bat) is smoking hot right now.
I don’t know what more Gordon can do to prove to his manager that he belongs in the starting line-up everyday (with an occasion day off, of course) but one thing is for certain, Dodger fans breathe a lot easier when they see number 9 in the starting line-up – regardless of which arm the opposing pitchers throws with.
Posted in 
RT @Think_BlueLA: New post: Dee Gordon is have a great season so far, but… – http://t.co/My16ADeDXT #Dodgers
Regardless of the statistics I have never been a big fan of platooning.I see it done only as a necessity and certainly not when a player is hot.
As mentioned, there is not much more Dee can do to to gain full time status.
Too much attention is given to statistics and the lefty/righty matchups. If the guy is getting the job done, don’t yank the rug out from under him. It sends the wrong message to the team…
I don’t see any reason to bench Gordon when the Dodgers are facing a lefthander, Not when he is presently the teams top hitter. If he goes into a slump, I can see Mattingly benching him but at the moment there’s definitely no reason.
Everyone has good points but allow me to be on the side of having a bit of patience. Anyone remember when Ned Colletti was being grilled about why he didn’t want to lavish the title of second-baseman-for-the-next-five years on a then-hot hitting guy named Orlando Hudson?
I figure if the Dodgers are still standing in October, I won’t care who Mattingly platooned, or didn’t platoon, to get there. If the concept worked for Earl Weaver and Joe Torre, who once went on a funny diatribe about having to explain to Ruben Sierra what platooning was, we might as well let Mattingly have his shot.
Last nights game is a great example of why you play the hot hand, without Gordon’s contributions we would not have been in that game to the end. We may have lost but it was his clutch hitting that extended the game and gave us a chance to win !! Mattingley needs to learn how to best use him instead of concerning himself with when to bench him.
What happened to Guerrero? He had one at bat at AAA and has disappeared with a mysterious muscle strain. I heard he is off the Isotopes roster? Is that right?
With Gordon, I don’t think I have ever seen a second baseman go down on one knee so many times on routine grounders. In the last loss to the Tigers, he went down on one knee for a routine grounder that he should have come in on and it hit him in the chest. I hope he can learn how to play second base because one could get used to having such blazing speed on the top of the order. He is learning how to just slap the ball and simply put it in play which has produced infield singles. He is bunting better than he ever has before before. It is a nice tool to have his speed on the base paths but as soon as his AVG falls he will most likely have his time reduced because of his sub-par defense. Hope he can keep it up because Guerrero seems to be missing in action.
Guerrero pulled an oblique muscle right after the Australia trip (aka: The Australia Jinx). I just saw this on Twitter: