John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports

J.D. Davis has swung a well bat over the course of the first 34 games of the season with the best hard-hit percentage in the league among players with at least 25 batted ball events. Yet, his production has not shown results from all that hard contact. The third baseman/designated hitter had his best performance at the plate against the San Francisco Giants on Monday night, going 4-for-5 with two doubles and two runs batted in.

In the top of the third, Davis singled on a sharp line drive to center field. He would come around to score on the two-run ground-rule double from Francisco Lindor. Davis would get his second hit of the night in the sixth inning, hitting an RBI double past the diving Evan Longoria at third base. He would then go onto hit another line drive to center field in the eighth inning, this time for a double. Davis capped it all off with an RBI single on a ground ball that got through the infield in the ninth.

“It was a good day, found a lot of barrels, found a lot of holes today. Credit to Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes for working with me. It was a matter of time to have found some holes,” he said. With his four hits against the Giants, Davis raised his OPS from .586 to .677.

The former third-round draft pick has been hitting the ball extremely hard in a majority of his at bats. In 86 plate appearances this season, Davis has a hard hit rate of 65.4 percent.

Davis has got very unlucky with a lot of the balls he has put in play this season, mainly down to the defense being in the right place. The stark difference between his batting average and his expected batting average shows that he has not had a lot go his way. Davis has a batting average of .230 and an expected batting average of .298. Of the course of a full season, he and Mets would hope that those numbers will balance out in the end.

Throughout his time with the Mets, Davis has shown the potential to be a really good hitter at the major-league level. If he can continue to consistently put good at-bats together, he should see more playing time out of designated hitter spot. Now that Robinson Canó is out of the organization, that really only leaves Dominic Smith and Davis to fill that DH role (Pete Alonso as well when he gets a day off at first base). With his results Monday night, he might have a leg up over others.