Kevin Long, in his second year as hitting coach for the New York Mets, is met with the early daunting task of breaking this team out of their offensive woes. The offense has sputtered out of the gate to a major league worst in average (.194), slugging (.250) and OPS (.535). Long though, who has been around for 10 years, is not concerned.
“I’ve seen all sorts of stuff happen,” said Long, in his second season with the Mets. “As a matter of fact, we got no-hit twice last year and went to the World Series, so explain that? And the Dodgers got no-hit twice and we were playing them in a playoff series. So strange things happen in baseball.” (Newsday)
The veterans of this team have been off to a cold start minus David Wright and some glimpses of heating up from Yoenis Cespedes. The offense has yet to find it’s stride, but one veteran at least believes that day is coming, first baseman Lucas Duda.
“We have enough veterans on our team that we’ve been through it, especially since we’ve been through much harder times than we’re going through right now,” Duda said. “I feel like there’s no need to overreact or panic. We’re just seven or eight games deep. You’ve got to sort of bear with it, as do the fans. We’re in a bit of a funk.”
The Mets rank 25th in on-base percentage (.285) but place in the upper third of baseball with 30 walks. Possibly the most interesting stat during this funk, the team’s 20 runs scored through their first eight games put them is only ahead of the winless 0-9 Twins, who have scored 14.
“There’s been some poor days when we just haven’t swung the bat well and then there’s been some days when we’ve hit some balls hard and for whatever reason they’ve been at people or the wind was blowing in that day,” Long said. “I think the main thing we’re talking about here is that it just hasn’t clicked, and it hasn’t clicked on all cylinders.”
Wright knows the team is not putting the pressure it needs on opposing teams. Too many times already this season, the Mets have stranded runners on the basepaths. They have yet to be able to find that constant clutch hit.
“Right now we’re just not at that point where we’re putting pressure on the opposing team and getting baserunners out there,” third baseman David Wright said. “It’s almost like, again, you get one shot, maybe two shots, to score runs in the game, and if you don’t do it, it’s not happening.”
