Poor Ike Davis… He gets demoted to Triple-A, deservedly so, and leaves for Las Vegas without commenting on his feelings or the matter. The obviously crushed first baseman kept his head down after the game on Sunday as he emptied his locker, packed his bags and headed for the airport.
SNY sent their Baseball Insider Andy Martino to Vegas and asked Davis what was going through his mind after a couple of days to let the reality of the situation sink in.
“It’s not a good feeling. I was a little down, for sure,” he said. “You’re getting fired or demoted. In a normal job, that’s what happens, but you’ve got to brush yourself off and go back to where you should be. You don’t ever want to come back to the minor leagues after playing in the big leagues for three straight years.”
Ike Davis is now where he belongs. I wish they had done this in April when I first pointed out his slump would continue because his swing was out of whack. This wasn’t a problem of not making contact as much as it was a swing that that was in need of an overhaul. Anyway, better late than never…
The good news is that manager Wally Backman is determined to get Davis back on track and the Met first baseman has put his hurt feelings and bruised ego aside and is prepared to let Wally help him. The goal is to bring back the Ike Davis who thrilled fans from 2010 until Ankle-Gate in 2011.
When asked if the Mets gave him any type of timetable for a return, Davis responded:
“I’ve proven that I can get hot in a couple of months and totally turn things around,” Davis said. “Hopefully, if I rake, I’ll be back soon, but they didn’t have a date or anything.”
It’s hard not to like Ike… He’s the ultimate competitor and we all know what a positive presence he was in the clubhouse from day one. He fit right in from the start.
I’m confident that Davis will be back and that Backman will have him performing better than ever. You couldn’t have a better qualified person than Wally to get Davis through this. He’ll keep his new first baseman motivated and focused as he begins the task of getting him to play and enjoy the game the way he used to.
Davis will have plenty of time to make adjustments without having to worry about the boo-birds haunting him if he strikes out. The atmosphere will be relaxed now that he’s away from the pressure cooker at Citi Field. He’s gonna be just fine…
Get back soon, Ike…
Original Post 6/11
Anthony Rieber of Newsday, spoke to Las Vegas manager Wally Backman who has been charged, along with hitting coach George Greer, with fixing Ike Davis beginning today.
“It may be two weeks. It could be a month. I don’t know,” Backman said regarding the length of Davis’ demotion. “He’s coming here for us to fix him, and we’re going try to fix him. I think there’s a lot more mental than there is physical. When I sit him down and talk to him, we’re going to try to attack that. Try to clear his head from everything. He was getting, from what I heard, lots of different people giving him a lot of different information. So basically, mentally, he’s totally messed up.”
Backman said that he’s already “watched hours and hours of tape” on Davis and that his swing now is so completely different from when he first arrived to the big leagues.
“He’s made so many changes. I think personally it’s been too many changes. Try to get him back to what he did to get to the big leagues. We’re going to work with him on a daily basis. It’s going to be one-on-one work with me, him and George. Nobody else is out there. We’re going to let him really try to figure it out.”
Greer, who coached Davis in the minors, told Rieber that they will be going back to square one with the former Mets first baseman.
“We’re just going to go from ground zero. He’ll tell me how he feels, and I’ll tell him what I see, and because we have worked together in the past, we’ll come hopefully to a happy medium where he can start feeling good about himself.”
One thing to consider is that Davis, who is now earning $3.125 million, could become a non-tender candidate for the Mets after this season. Especially if he doesn’t get himself sorted out. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that.
