After it became obvious that Jose Reyes was not yet ready to hit atop the Mets lineup, Terry Collins had to scramble to find a replacement leadoff hitter. He first turned to former leadoff man Curtis Granderson, but as he has been slumping too, he wasn’t the best option. Collins ended up giving Michael Conforto a start on top of the Mets lineup and, so far, it has worked out phenomenally.
In Sunday’s game against Max Scherzer and the Nationals, Conforto went 3-for-4 with a leadoff home run and two runs scored, raising his 2017 batting average to .361. He accounted for half of the Mets’ six hits and scored two of their three runs. The last time he hit leadoff, Friday against the Nationals, he went 2-for-4 with a walk and (again) a leadoff home run.
In two other starts in which he led off, he went 2-for-4 with a home run, walk, and three runs scored and 0-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. That means, in four starts leading off, he has gone 7-for-16 (.438) with three home runs, three walks, and seven runs scored, good for a .438/.526/1.000 (1.526 OPS) slash line.
Conforto, obviously, does not profile as a leadoff hitter. However, he has shown an innate ability to work the count and get on base, as evidenced by his seven runs scored in 19 plate appearances in the leadoff spot. He seems to be one of the only players producing right now, but he had something to say about that talking to reporters after last night’s loss.
“We’re going to be fine,” Conforto said. “We have a lot of faith in ourselves. We’ll get our horses back soon, and I think we’ll be all right.”
Until Jose Reyes can prove he can produce atop the Mets lineup, Conforto should stay perched up there. Eventually it would be nice to move him lower in the order where he can drive in runs, but right now, he is proving to be a tremendous table-setter.
