Yes he is back. Pablo Sandoval was back in the lineup last night after a strange hamate (blogger doesn't recognize this as a word that's how rare it is) fracture injury. And it looks like Kung Fu Panda has laid off of the Kung Pao Chicken during his time on the DL. In his post-injury debut, Sandoval went 1-4 with an RBI and a walk. He looked comfortable at the plate and in the field.
It's nice to see someone actually coming off the DL than being put on it. Sandoval should be a good morale boost for this battered and bruised roster. As I'm writing this he just hit a single up the middle, thank you Pablo for helping me prove my point. He's now hitting .400 since coming back, small sample size though. And he just scored from second on a single by Huff to left field. Panda was cruising around the bases.
The middle of the lineup has been struggling most of the year and it's nice to see a batting average in the lineup that begins with a three and not a two (or unfortunately a one, not naming names). If Sandoval can continue his offensive performance that he began in the beginning of the season we should have a much better offense going forward. It will take the pressure off Huff and hopefully the hitters around him will see some better pitches ( I was going to mention names but the lineup is different everyday).
With Sandoval back in the swing of things it looks like Tejada and Crawford are going to be splitting time at shortstop. Tejada will most likely be playing third when Bochy decides to rest Panda.
I will leave you with a tutorial on Sandoval's handshakes with his teammates from 2010 Spring training. I never noticed that he has a different handshake with each player. I have to start paying attention to the Pandashakes.
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