Angels flip-flop Hideki Matsui and Kendry Morales in middle of order

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Manager Mike Scioscia, looking to shake up an offense that scored only nine runs while being swept in a three-game series in Detroit over the weekend, flip-flopped Hideki Matsui and Kendry Morales in the fourth and fifth spots for Monday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.

Matsui batted in cleanup in each of the Angels’ first 26 games, but the Japanese designated hitter is mired in a 3-for-25 slump that has dropped his average from .310 on April 24 to .260 entering Monday night.

Morales has started every game in the fifth spot, and the first baseman, who is batting .260, leads the team with six home runs and 16 runs batted in. But he hasn’t exactly been on a tear recently -- he had no homers or RBIs in his last six games.

‘We’re just looking at some things to take some pressure off Hideki,’ Scioscia said. ‘We moved Kendry up, and we’ll look at some options as we move forward. It’s not necessarily a promotion or a demotion. We’re just trying to find some groupings that will work.’

Matsui -- who will make his third start of the season in left field Monday night but will probably be given his first day off Tuesday night, when left-hander Jon Lester starts for the Red Sox -- took the switch in stride.

‘It doesn’t matter to me where I hit in the lineup,’ Matsui said through an interpreter, ‘and [the move] doesn’t bother me at all.’

-- Mike DiGiovanna in Boston