Jay Bruce denied a report by the Dayton Daily News that he did not want to be traded to New York under any circumstances. Bruce admitted the Big Apple wasn’t his preference, but that the report was exaggerated. “That’s not how it went,” he said.
“I got a chance to come play in a playoff race, and I’m so happy to be here,” Bruce said. “Things get misconstrued, obviously. Yes, New York wasn’t on my list initially. Definitely I wasn’t as comfortable with New York as I was the other places, but I’m happy to be here, and we’re doing exactly what I hoped to do when I got here.”
Original Report Aug 4
Apparently, Jay Bruce didn’t want to get traded to the New York Mets. Hal McCoy of the Daily Dayton News reported in his mailbag column:
Fatherhood has not hurt Bruce. He isn’t losing sleep or wasting energy changing diapers. Actually, he was still in Cincinnati when he became a father and was having a great year. Then they traded him to New York and his numbers declined in a New York minute. I was told when he knew he would be traded he went to the Reds and asked them to trade him anywhere but to New York.
Asked about the report on Sunday night, Bruce said “the report was exaggerated.”
Bruce’s season has certainly changed dramatically since he became a Met.
With the Reds, Bruce was having a career best year hitting .265/.316/.559 with 25 homers and a major league leading 80 RBI.
With the Mets, it has been a different story. In his first 28 games with the Mets, Bruce is hitting .198/.270/.327 with only three homers and eight RBI. He has fallen out of the top five in the National League and out of the top 10 in the majors in RBI.
Manager Terry Collins has been giving Bruce games off against right-handed pitchers and also moved him down the batting order.
During his tenure with the Mets, the team is 14-15 in games he has played. So far, the trade hasn’t worked well for either Bruce or the Mets, but there’s one month left in the season to turn that around.
It appears that the tide is turning for Bruce. Over his last nine games, he is hitting 10-for-28 with two doubles, two homers, and four RBI. In Sunday night’s win against the Nationals, he hit an impressive opposite field two run homer to ice the game for the Mets.
Bruce may not have wanted to be here, but he’s starting to adjust and produce. As the Mets fight down the stretch for the Wild Card, he’s going to play a very important role.
