Another big night for impressive rookie Michael Conforto who his fifth home run in the third inning on Wednesday night, a two-run opposite field shot, and he extended his on-base streak to 15 games dating back to August 15.
Over his last 17 games, Conforto is hitting .400 (20-50) with five doubles, four home runs and nine RBI. He has really been raking of late going 7-for-11 (.636) with two home runs over his last four games.
Since the Mets called up Conforto, they are 26-12.
A couple of days ago, in a previous article about Conforto, a discussion arose about whether this young and exciting outfield prospect was ready to start playing every day and not keep sitting against left-handed pitching – which most of us agreed he was ready to do given his swing and approach and minor league performance.
Conforto hit .333 against left-handed pitching and .303 against right-handed pitching this season with Double-A Binghamton before his promotion to the majors.
So far with the big-league team that trend has held almost identically, albeit in a small sample size. The young slugger is batting .310 vs RHP and .330 vs LHP with the Mets.
After the game last night, Terry Collins was asked if Conforto had shown enough to warrant playing time against left-handed pitching. But the Mets manager quickly shot it down and plainly said that it was not going to happen.
“We’ve brought people in here that hit lefties, that have a career record of hitting lefties,” Collins said. “And right now that’s what we’ve been doing, and I’m going to stay with it.” (ESPN New York)
As usual, I believe Terry Collins is being very shortsighted on this and I completely disagree with his stance. In fact I’d even say that Sandy Alderson probably disagrees with him as well as he so often does.
Hopefully Conforto can earn that regular starting job in left field next season, although it’s not a certainty with Michael Cuddyer still signed through 2016 and getting a significant raise next year.
Conforto is now batting .311 this season with a .397 on-base percentage and .567 slugging in 106 plate appearances. He already has a 1.6 WAR in his limited playing time.
Possessing a flair for the dramatic and for coming up big when the moment calls for it, he is batting .350 (7-for-20) with runners in scoring position with 13 RBIs and a 1.144 OPS.
That Conforto is able to produce numbers like this at the major-league level after having spent only 40 games above Single-A is a testament to the type of player he is, and conjures up some incredible expectations for what he can do for the New York Mets moving forward.
He has earned high praise and respect from third baseman and team captain David Wright.
“If you were going to build a ballplayer with the right approach along with the right amount of talent, he’d be the guy,’’ David Wright told The Post. “He’s not entitled.’
“Some guys come in here and they’re loud, a lot more talking than they are listening and he’s the opposite,” Wright said. “He’s an excellent player, a great person, one of those young guys who gets it.’’
It feels like I am writing a couple of posts every week on Conforto which is pretty remarkable and because he’s always doing something very notable. As I’ve said before, I believe we have struck gold here.
