Michael Conforto reportedly changed his approach and swing slightly in order to wait on the ball more and drive it all over the field like the human-spray chart he became in 2017.
Last night, he broke out and in a big way as he went 2-for-4 with a home run and four RBI, which ties his career-high in the last category.
Three of those came in the top of the second as Conforto crushed a high fastball from left-hander Patrick Corbin over the wall in right field to put the Mets in front 3-0. It was the second-hardest hit home run of his career at 112.4 MPH.
In the sixth inning, he came through for the Mets again with a two-out double, against Corbin once more, off the bottom of the right-field wall to extend the Mets’ lead to 4-0.
Since it was reported that Conforto made changes to his swing and approach, the 25-year old has gone 3-for-10 with two home runs, five RBI, and two walks.
While this is an extremely small sample size to judge whether or not his adjustments are paying off, Conforto was encouraged by the results.
“We’ve just been working on trying to let the ball travel a little bit and trying to stay behind it a little bit. That way I have a little more time to recognize pitches. I can go the other way with power and then use the quickness of my hands to react on pitches in which I got a fastball inside tonight and hit it for a homer and then hit a breaking ball.”
The Mets are certainly hoping Conforto has broken out of his season-long slump and that his shoulder issues are behind him as he has been pretty bad this season hitting .218/.343/.386 on the year with nine home runs and 21 RBI.
Obviously, at the end of the day, the idea of the rumored demotion of Conforto is viewed as a worst-case scenario and the team would certainly prefer to see him sort out his issues at the big-league level.
