Just finished watching the highlights--if you want to call them that--from last night's game. I was talking to Bucdaddy last night, and one of the things I think he said was that Ryan Doumit's biggest weakness as a catcher is, you know, catching the ball. With that in mind, trying to make him a first baseman just seems perverse. The tools just aren't there, and the Tigers clearly know that. In Friday night's game, they had Brennan Boesch taking ridiculous leads off first, and it seemed to me that the reason why was that if they got the pitcher to make enough throws over, Doumit would eventually mess something up. On Saturday, the Bucs' decision to play Doumit at first really did prove costly, as he missed a throw that caused two runs to come home.
John Russell, I beg you: stop playing Ryan Doumit at first. His bat is good, yes, but not so good that you need to make him a first baseman. And as someone wrote in the comments yesterday, if you need to play him somewhere besides catcher, put him in right field. He has a strong enough arm, and there aren't a lot of tough plays out there.