Don’t look now ladies and gentleman, but Curtis Granderson is on a major tear, and better than that, he’s in the midst of a desperately needed power surge. I’m shocked at how widely ignored Granderson’s recent play is in the Mets universe, but maybe this post will spur others on.
Granderson hit his second leadoff home run of the season on Sunday and the 30th of his career. He ranks fourth among active players in leadoff home runs behind Jimmy Rollins (47), Ichiro Suzuki (37) and Ian Kinsler (31).
The Mets right fielder also also hit home runs in consecutive at-bats after going deep in the seventh inning on Saturday. and then again to leadoff the game on Sunday.
While Granderson has been doing pretty good in the walks department, leading the team with 23 and ranking fourth in the majors, the Mets have been waiting for him to put up the kind of power numbers worthy of the four year deal he signed before the 2014 season.
He now has five homers, putting him on pace for about 21, but they’ve all come in the last 28 days which has him slashing at a .295/.370/.523 clip – or basically the kind of numbers this team needs from him to propel the offense.
“He’s still dangerous,” Terry Collins said about Granderson’s recent surge. “They’ve been pitching him carefully and I salute him for not trying to expand the strike zone. But I do believe the home runs will come.”
He’s been red hot the last 14 days as evidenced by his .918 OPS and it might even be time to drop him down to a spot in the batting order where he can drive in some runs and improve on those 13 RBIs.
