Michael Bourn will be out of the starting lineup when the Indians are facing a left-handed starter, at least for a while, says Indians manager Terry Francona.
On some level, this is not especially surprising, given that Bourn had an OPS of just .569 against southpaws last season, and is at .556 so far against them this year. On the other hand, his OPS against righties this season is .465, so it's not as though his struggles are limited to facing righties.
What this does is allow Brandon Moss, Ryan Raburn (who's hitting lefties really well right now), and Nick Swisher (who returns tonight) all get into the lineup at the same time, without sitting Michael Brantley or Carlos Santana out. Carlos has actually been moved up to the #2 spot, an attempt to use his strong on-base skills to better use; Raburn has been put into the cleanup spot; and Swisher will make his 2015 debut in the #6 spot.
We haven't seen Brantley in center field yet this season, and there was some thought that either because of his back or due to not wanting to mess with a good thing, Francona wouldn't scoot him over at this point. Clearly that's not the case. The outfield defense suffers a bit with this arrangement, but the lineup should be stronger.