41 Carlos Santana 1B

Santana went 2-for-5 with a walk, a homer, two runs and two RBI in Tuesday's victory over the Marlins.

Leading off for the second time in four games, Santana set the tone from the start, opening the game with a leadoff homer, his 21st of the season. Santana's batting average remains quite low at .227, but that's brought down by poor batted-ball luck from the start of the season; the first baseman's expected batting average according to Statcast is a solid .263, right in line with the .259 batting average he recorded in each of the last two seasons.

Santana went 2-for-4 with a grand slam and two runs scored in Wednesday's 8-6 win over the Nationals.

The Phillies were down 5-2 in the fifth inning before Santana turned the game around with his 20th homer of the year. The veteran slugger has picked up the pace a little in August, slashing .259/.340/.459 through 25 games with four home runs and 14 RBI, and while his overall numbers are down from his days in Cleveland, the 32-year-old's 77 RBI leave him 10 shy of his previous career high set in 2016.

Santana went 1-for-4 with a solo home run and two RBI in Sunday's 8-3 win over the Blue Jays.

Santana clubbed a solo homer over the fence in right field in the first inning, and he drove in a run in the eighth on a sacrifice fly. Despite a .221 batting average in 2018, Santana has recorded 44 extra-base hits, 73 RBI and a .758 OPS through 129 games.

Santana is out of the starting lineup for Game 1 of Thursday's twin bill versus the Mets, Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports.

Santana will remain on the bench as right-hander Corey Oswalt takes the mound for New York in the matinee. Expect to see Santana back in the lineup during Game 2, especially with southpaw Steven Matz (forearm) slated to come off the DL and pitch. Justin Bour will man first base and bat second in Game 1.

Santana is out of Wednesday's lineup against the Red Sox.

The recently-acquired Justin Bour gets the start at first base and will hit second against righty Nathan Eovaldi. We keep waiting for Santana's batting average to see some positive regression, but it has not cooperated. He is 3-for-27 over his last eight games and is hitting just .214 on the season. Bour should see a start or two per week against righties, but the team is committed to Santana long term, so expect him to be in there most days. He has still been slightly above league average (102 wRC+) thanks to a 17.4 percent walk rate.