The Lineup Card

ESPN the Magazine had an interesting piece on the early struggles of Alex Gordon. Gordon, the top prospect in all of baseball entering the season, has gotten off to a rough .173/.316/.296 start. I think he's about to turn a corner, but the piece reminds us just how tough it can be making the jump from the minors to the bigs.

Gordon got a particularly rude introduction facing Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka to start the season, and at least in the Magazine, admits to feeling a little overwhelmed. He's living in a suitcase in Kansas City and getting challenged every night:

• "Publicly, Gordon keeps saying all the right things. Privately, between sessions in the cage, he admits he's pressing. 'It's definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be. But Even if Gordon is having doubts, [Mike] Sweeney isn't. 'We haven't had a guy come through here with this much talent since Carlos Beltran.'"

I tend to rely on stats solely on this blog, but it's folly to pretend like this game we all love doesn't have a very large mental component, and for at least part of the first month, Gordon is getting worked over mentally. He's got all the talent in the world and statisticians and scouts are almost unanimous on his future. As Tim Kurkjian points out on the next page, many of the all-time greats got off to rough starts.

Ryne Sandberg 1-for-32. Harold Baines 1-for-25. Steve Garvey 2-for-25. The guy he's most often compared to, George Brett, also 2-for-25. Willie Mays was so bad he asked to be demoted.

• "'I wasn't the College Player of the Year. I wasn't the Minor League Player of the Year. I wasn't the savior of the franchise,' says Brett ... 'I was just a little kid from California. I've thought about how much I want to be Alex Gordon.' Brett pauses, smiles and adds, 'But considering what he's going through back then and what I went through back then, I'm glad I'm not.'"

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