Over the past weeks, the name Johnny Giavotella has slowly been forgotten as Cliff Pennington has been getting more playing time at second base. But why is Pennington getting more playing time of Giavotella? It’s time to solve this mystery.
Like myself a lot of us (Angels fans) are curious why our man Johnny G hasn’t been getting any playing time as of recently. Cliff Pennington has been getting most of the starts at second base within the lasts couple weeks.
In Cliff Pennington’s last 30 games with the Angels, he is batting a .237 average with three home runs and five runs batted in. While Johnny Giavotella in the last 30 games is batting .235 with zero home runs and five runs batted in.
From the offensive point of view in the past series, both Pennington and Giavtoella have struggled but the 32-year old gets the slight edge. Now let’s talk about the fielding. Could that be a concern for Johnny G?
Johnny G has logged a little over 768 innings played at second base vs. Pennington’s 158 innings at second. However Pennington also has accounted for 66 innings of position play at both shortstop and 1st base. While Pennington hasn’t committed an error at all during the 2016 season, Giavotella has 5 but to his credit he still is sporting .986 fielding percentage which still isn’t all that bad.
Everyone commits errors, nobodies perfect but he also has 54 double plays turned vs. Pennington’s 10. Overall I believe Johnny Giavotella doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He’s been the spark to a lot of rallies the season (which have been about 2) and while the Angels are in the midst of a 11 game losing streak, Giavotella hasn’t been playing barely at all during this stretch. Why Johnny isn’t getting his starts at second base anymore? Only 16 year manager Mike Scioscia knows.