Matsui: Unemployed!

Well, almost. Alyson Footer's blog post finds Brad Mills non-committal on whether or not to just go ahead and sit Kaz Matsui on his formerly-cracked anus in favor of Jeff Keppinger and his .371 average:

"I don't want to label it that way yet. We're still just a dozen games into the season. Let's wait and see how everything plays out. I'm congnizant to get (Matsui) out there and get him on a roll. It's tough, but it's tough to not get the other guy (Keppinger) out there. Coming out of Spring Training, I was trying to get Keppinger at-bats in first week of the season. He did so well, the other at-bats were kind of silent. As we kept him in there, he continued to play really well."

Footer notes there's no Starting Quarterback syndrome:
It's the right thing to do for the sake of the team and when you're 3-9, it would make no sense to play the lesser player just because he was signed as a starter and the other was, upon trading for him, viewed as a bench guy. Ed Wade gave Mills complete autonomy with decisions surrounding Matsui -- meaning, Mills will do what's best for the on-field health of the team without worrying about how much one player is being paid over the other.

Craig Calcaterra says:
The more playing time Keppinger gets, the more he'll start to look like what Kaz Matsui will give the Astros with more playing time himself. Ask the Reds who, after Keppinger had a fairly spectacular 267 at bats in 2007, tried to make him into a full time player the following year. The results: .266/.310/.346. Some of that was no doubt due to a knee injury he got in May of that year, but a lot of it was simply a function of him being exposed as something less than a full time player.

Keppinger more or less kills lefties, but if you give the guy 500 plate appearances, he's not going to do much more for you than Matsui is going to do. In light of that it makes sense for Mills not to make some big announcement regarding who the starting second baseman is, play the hot hand and enjoy Keppinger's production while it lasts.