Lineup Shake-Up Is No Help

With his team struggling to score runs during the National League championship series and managing only two hits in the first game of the World Series, Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox took a jackhammer to his Game 2 lineup Sunday night, benching NL championship series most valuable player Eddie Perez, second baseman and No. 2 hitter Bret Boone and shortstop Walt Weiss.

In their places were shortstop Ozzie Guillen, who was inserted into the No. 2 spot, Keith Lockhart at second and Greg Myers behind the plate, all left-handed hitters Cox hoped would have more success against Yankee right-hander David Cone.

Myers had two hits, including a run-scoring single, but Guillen and Lockhart combined to go 0 for 6 in Atlanta’s 7-2 loss. Guillen also made an embarrassing gaffe that cost the Braves a run in the third, when he dropped Cone’s easy looper, and the middle infielders’ failure to turn a double play on Tino Martinez’s fourth-inning grounder cost the Braves another run.

“It’s kind of unusual in the World Series to change the lineup so dramatically,” Atlanta right fielder Brian Jordan said. “I know the guys who aren’t playing were pretty surprised. I guess Bobby is trying to mix it up, make things happen.”

Cox said Perez broke a blood vessel on one of the fingers of his catching hand Saturday night, “but I don’t think that’s why I’m not playing today,” said Perez, who is hitting .368 with two home runs and eight RBIs in the playoffs. “I’m not playing because we [stink] as hitters. We’ve got to try something different.”