PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Newly acquired Phillies second baseman Luis Arraez is excited to be in Philadelphia and in a playoff race. He\u2019s also grateful that two-time MVP Bryce Harper was willing to make a position switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised, but I\u2019m really excited to be here,\u201d Arraez said Tuesday ahead of his Phillies debut.<\/p>\n
A three-time batting champion and four-time All-Star, Arraez was slotted into the cleanup spot behind Harper for Tuesday night’s game against Washington. He singled, doubled and drove in two runs to help the Phillies beat the Nationals 5-0<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was excited, especially when fans gave me that ovation,\u201d Arraez said of his debut. \u201cThat was beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n Arraez boosted his NL-best batting average to .325. Including his 105 games with the San Francisco Giants, he has just 21 strikeouts in 468 plate appearances this season.<\/p>\n \u201cI love to put the ball in play,\u201d he said. \u201cI hate strikeouts.\u201d<\/p>\n Arraez\u2019s acquisition for a pair of minor leaguers required Philadelphia to revamp its defensive lineup, most notably with Harper moving back to right field from first base. Harper last played the outfield on April 16, 2022, and moved to the infield after he suffered an elbow injury on a throw that led to Tommy John surgery. He consented to the switch to help the team, he said Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a pro,\u201d Arraez said of Harper. \u201cA lot of respect from me.\u201d<\/p>\n Interim manager Don Mattingly said that while Harper will need to ramp up to full arm strength, there are no issues with his throwing.<\/p>\n \u201cNo restrictions on how he plays,\u201d Mattingly said.<\/p>\n Alec Bohm moved from third base to first, and Bryson Stott vacated second base for Arraez and shifted to third.<\/p>\n \u201cThere may be some bumps and bruises with this, but these guys are baseball players and they\u2019re going to be fine,\u201d Mattingly said.<\/p>\n Mattingly considered batting Arraez in the leadoff spot but ultimately decided to put slugger Kyle Schwarber at the top of the lineup and Arraez in the cleanup role, which is not typical for a contact hitter. Arraez, who has four homers this season, said he doesn\u2019t worry about where he bats in the order.<\/p>\n \u201cI just want to go there and try to help the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Giants were 17 games under .500 entering Tuesday, while Philadelphia is in position for an NL wild card.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t wait,\u201d Arraez said.<\/p>\n But he won\u2019t try to change his game, which is a throwback to a bygone era when there wasn\u2019t such an emphasis on power.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not my game,\u201d Arraez said. \u201cIf I change it, I\u2019ll be in my house watching the guys play baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Newly acquired Phillies second baseman Luis Arraez is excited to be in Philadelphia and in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,1425],"class_list":["post-259653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}