As the Braves try to avoid a September swoon for the second consecutive season, Fredi Gonzalez is doing much more lineup shuffling to try and get his team favorable matchups against opposing pitchers. Sunday's lineup against Philadelphia lefthander Cole Hamels saw Jason Heyward hitting sixth and Martin Prado at second in place of Dan Uggla.
Uggla like most players isn't very happy when his name is not on the lineup card and he talked about it with MLB.com's Mark Bowman.
"I hit a two-run homer off (Hamels) in the last game last year to put us up," Uggla said. "It's not a numbers thing for me, especially in September. It doesn't make any sense to me at all...Nobody agrees with not playing. It's just because I know what I can do, especially in September when I've been there before in big-game situations, especially last year. It's frustrating to say the least."
According to Bowman, Uggla voiced his displeasure with Gonzalez in a meeting but to no avail. Uggla has safely in each of Atlanta's last five games and has two homers in that span but is a career .145 hitter against Hamels.
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