I am absolutely livid with the Reds handling of Edwin Encarnacion. It's 100% on the shoulders of Jerry Narron, although Wayne Krivsky deserves some blame for allowing Narron's actions.
First, take a look at how well the great third basemen did in the majors at EE's age. That .190-something average of Mike Schmidt's doesn't look too good, does it? Nor does those couple of .954 fielding percentages. What about the .938 and .943 fielding percentages Harmon Killebrew put up at third at Edwin's age? Look at George Brett too - .948 and .957 at Edwin's age...
Get my drift? Third base is a place young players are going to make errors. You're not going to get an All-Star player without some growing pains.
The thing that bothers me most about Narron is how impatient he is with EE. Slumps happen. Hitters as good as EE will get out of them, sometimes all it takes is one big hit. You know, like the two-out, two-strike, two-run single Edwin got to pull the Reds within one run on April 16th. What did Narron do? He benched EE for the next two games, which killed any momentum EE might have gotten from that hit. EE got another potential slump-busting two-out, RBI single (two inches from being a two RBI single) on April 22nd that pulled the Reds within two (almost one)... Narron benched him the next inning. Where would EE be if Narron protected him like Narron does with Hamilton?
Narron has NEVER liked EE. That's a problem for Reds fans. You know why? As bad as EE has been at the plate this year, he still leads the team in RBIs when runners are in scoring positions. That's right. Despite hitting .218/.301/.287 overall, Encarnacion is hitting .276/.382/.488 with runners in scoring position. HE'S STILL GETTING IT DONE!!!
