Neil Walker has six home runs over his last nine games and his seven home runs are tied for the most he’s ever hit in any calendar month. The former Pirate had seven home runs in September, 2013 and seven in July, 2012. Walker is tied for fourth in the majors with his seven long balls. The only other Mets second baseman with seven or more home runs in April was Jeff Kent, who hit eight home runs in 1994. Dave Kingman (1976), Carlos Delgado (2006) and John Buck (2013) hold the club record with nine home runs in April. Walker heads into tonight’s game against the Reds riding a six game fitting streak, going 10-25 (.400) with four homers and four RBI.
Since moving into the number #3 spot in the lineup, left fielder Michael Conforto is hitting .324 (11-34) with seven runs scored, four doubles, two home runs and seven RBI in nine games with a .385 on-base percentage during that span. The Mets have scored 20 runs in the team’s first eight games. However, since moving Conforto into the third spot the team has scored 54 runs in nine games.
Noah Syndergaard leads the major leagues in recorded swinging strikes with a 19.3 swinging strike percentage, and according to FanGraphs, he averages the highest velocity in the major leagues on all of his pitches: fastball (98.4 mph) slider (92.4 mph), curveball (82.9 mph) and changeup (90.0 mph). Syndergaard is the first major league pitcher since Roger Clemens in 2005 to allow one run or fewer – and strike out at least eight batters – in each of his first three starts of a season. His 29 strikeouts in 2016 is tied for seventh in the majors and he is sixth in the majors in ERA (0.90).
