The Chris Davis leadoff experiment might come to an end Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.
Orioles manager Buck Showalter hoped that placing Davis atop the batting order would help him get off to a strong start while also spurring the offense. Although Davis is not the prototypical leadoff man, he does typically walk a lot and previous moves by Showalter to deploy an untraditional leadoff hitter — Manny Machado and Adam Jones are recent examples — netted results.
Showalter wanted to look at Davis in the leadoff position for the first two series of the season — the home series against the Minnesota Twins and road series at the Houston Astros — and then re-evaluate the batting order after that.