The Mets have just two legitimate major league hitters in their lineup; David Wright and Daniel Murphy. When the two of them are hot and the Mets get a good pitching performance, the odds are pretty good that they will gut out a win and perhaps even reel off a five game winning streak.
But when the two of them combine to go 0-for-8 don’t hold your breath waiting for something good to happen. The odds are the Mets will lose, just ask Matt Harvey, Jeremy Hefner and Shaun Marcum as each of them can attest to that.
“We’ve been struggling offensively for a while,” Collins said. “The Yankees series, Murph and David were red hot. You looked up and they were always on base. And it made it a little easier. So we’re not doing that right now. We’re looking to get some other people going. It just seems like if we get somebody on, we don’t capitalize on it.”
You want to see something sad? Check out this positional breakdown of the Mets offense this season, courtesy of our friends at Baseball Reference:
How pathetic is that?
Remember when all we needed offensively was a second baseman and a new left fielder?
In a post yesterday, I pointed out a couple of disturbing trends this season.
- Mets batters are hitting .217 when leading off an inning. Mets leadoff hitters are batting just .198 this season with a .528 OPS. With No. 8 hitters batting .174 and the No. 9 spot batting .191 those are three dead spots in a row in the lineup.
- With the Mets approach of trying to see more pitches during their at-bats, the results so far haven’t been very encouraging. They are batting .190 in three ball counts, .148 in two strike counts and .183 on full counts.
Something is not working. Something is not clicking. Last week I called for the Mets to fire Dave Hudgens. I normally don’t put much stock in the impact of a hitting coach, but in Hudgens’ case I have to make an exception. As I’ve said before, he doesn’t have one success story that he can cite since taking over as the Mets hitting coach. Not one. As a matter of fact, most of the players under his tutelage have regressed – many of them mightily.
Every single Met broadcast on SNY now spends a minimum of 15-20 minutes each game analyzing, dissecting and blabbering about this offensive philosophy from top to bottom. Personally, I’m as tired of hearing and reading about it as I am writing about it. Way too much is being made about something that doesn’t seem to have had any positive impact on this team. Again, look at that chart. And please spare me the small sample size as this team’s offense has been on a downward slope since 2010.
This one size fits all approach isn’t working. In my opinion each player is different and this philosophy of trying to fit round pegs into square holes hasn’t reaped anything remotely resembling a positive development. Newer isn’t always better, just ask the folks at Coca Cola.
As it stands right now, it’s getting to the point where the 2005- 2008 seasons are beginning to look like the good old days. Now that’s not a good sign, is it?
