Jordany Valdespin was initially slated not to start against LHP Chris Sale on Tuesday according to Terry Collins and as reported by Adam Rubin of ESPN New York.
That’s irrelevant now that Sale was moved up to pitch on Monday and will not pitch against the Mets after all.
Michael Baron of MetsBlog pointed out that against left-handed pitching, Valdespin is hitting just .182 with a .545 OPS. But what he failed to mention was that he only has 11 at-bats against left-handed pitching this season and an average fan will just look at those numbers and say he can’t hit LHP and nothing could be further from the truth.
Ike Davis, who has three times as much playing time against LHP this season is batting .138 with a .435 OPS.
I just wanted to throw that in to be fair to Valdespin while providing some actual context.
You don’t get better at something until you get more opportunities to learn and improve. Davis has gotten those opportunities and done nothing with them.
Valdespin, on the other hand, hasn’t been given enough time to make a judgement on him or write him off against left-handed pitching. In Spring Training, Valdespin batted .429 against LHP and led the team overall with a .883 OPS. Valdespin batted .276 against LHP from 2010-2012 in the minors.
