The 2015 MVP of the New York Mets, Curtis Granderson, has been marred in a season long slump in 2016. Regardless of how poorly he has been at the plate, his manager, Terry Collins, has stuck by his side and will continue to do so.
The Grandy-man had another uninspiring day at the plate in Tuesday’s 7-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. He went 0-for-4 on the night with a sacrifice fly. Over his last 15 games, he is hitting to a .143/.210/.286 slash line with two homers, three RBI and five walks.
“You still look up and this guy is going to end up with over 20 homers,” Collins said. “He’s not necessarily an RBI guy, so no matter where you think you should hit anybody in the order, they are going to end up coming up with guys on base at times.
“You hope they get hits and I kind of feel good when Grandy is up there, because I know he can hit the ball over the fence.” (NY Post)
No one will argue that he has still been able to go yard every now and then. His overall season numbers give you a .224/.314/.416 slash line to go along with 18 homers and 32 RBI. He has drawn 49 walks this year as well, last season he had a total of 91, he will not reach that mark again.
On top of the slump, he has been terrible with runners in scoring position this season. Prior to last night, he was hitless in his last 15 attempts with runners in scoring position and while he did get the sacrifice fly, it did nothing to improve that. With the addition of Jose Reyes, he is no longer the leadoff man on this team and has taken hold of the number two hole in the lineup. He is looked upon to help drive in some runs from this position, with Reyes ahead of him.
“Initially I was in the position where I was going to lead off and set the tone and things like that,” Granderson said. “And I’ve mixed when to be aggressive versus when to set the tone for everybody else, so there’s been pitches I could have gone after and attacked and maybe did something with that I let go by and then the number of opportunities after that have gone down a little bit more than they have in the past. It makes it a little bit more of an uphill battle when you are letting those pitches go.”
Through all of his struggles, Collins has no intentions of moving him down in the order. He also has no intentions of seemingly sitting Granderson as the Mets make a run at the second Wild Card spot.
“You move those guys down to the bottom of the lineup and they get on base and there’s nobody down at the bottom of the lineup to drive them in,” Collins said. “There’s no answers. You gather the information and you write the lineup. It’s not a perfect world we live in.”
It is not a perfect world at all for the Mets right now. The team needs Granderson to come around somewhat. If he was even half the player he was last season, this team could have a grasp on that second Wild Card spot at this point. Granderson is a streaky hitter though, having a hot streak anytime soon could help this team tremendously. It is just a matter if he still has it in him.
