|
|
|
David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News takes at look at five question to consider as the race for the National League East enters the second quarter of the season.
Among the five questions Murphy asks is, “can the Mets hit?” To which he responds:
“Their offensive numbers are hardly earth-shattering: 10th in the NL with 173 runs, 11th in batting average (.254), 12th in slugging (.391), 14th in home runs (26). So even though opponents are hitting .255 against them, they have been maddeningly inconsistent.”
…murphy hits this on the head…
…i have no doubt the Mets pitching staff will do more than enough to keep the team in ballgames…it’s their sputtering offense that will be the determining factor if the Mets are to make a return to the postseason…
I’m pretty confident that Beltran will get himself on track, and that Wright will find his stroke. That should get us a top 8 offense.
Question is, will that be enough to get past the Philly mashers?
Phillies are below the mets in OBP and AVG, but killing the Mets in HR, and above the Mets by 7 runs, but have 3 more games played and over 100 more at bats. I think the Mets could end up with a better offense by the end of the season (as long as ryan Howard continues to suck with his .181 avg). Although with Rollins back in the lineup…
“as long as ryan Howard continues to suck with his .181 avg”
I’m not banking on that, at all. Dude’s too good.
Yea, I agree, I just love to point it out when he struggles, and how many strikeouts he tallies up.
And then he goes off and hits 8 homeruns in a week.
Uh oh… he’s up to .181? It was .167 last I looked, maybe he’s waking up.
I see Andruw’s still waving a limp stick in LA though. Shame he’s not stinking it up for the Braves.
Yea, theres another guy I love to hear struggling
Don’t forget, the Phillies can mash but their pitching is unlikely to stay as good as it has been, which isn’t even that great.
The bats are showing signs of life recently – even in Monday’s loss they had a whole sackful of hits. Now they just have to take confidence gained from the bases empty base hits and apply it to RBI situations.
Yea im sure the offense will pull itself together. We just have to worry about staying healthy enough to make the long haul.
I think Jose Reyes needs to get on a roll.
He’s swinging at pitches he was swinging at when he first came up as a 19 yr. old in 2003. He seems completely clueless at times at the plate and his discipline has regressed this year.
If Jose continues to struggle, this offense will continue its maddening inconsistency.
They are averaging 6 runs a game in May. That is pretty good
Yup. Reyes has been absolutely brutal to watch this year. Even still, he’s around .250 – not awful. Perhaps he can get his head on straight once again in re. to spitting on those 2 strike breaking balls and jumping on the ones early in the count.
I know that the mets’ offense has been hit or miss this season. But I don’t hear anything about the fact that the phillies have played 3 more games than the mets and only scored 7 more runs, or that the braves have played 1 more game and scored only 2 more runs. I’m no mathematician, but it seems to me like our boys have done a better job than these “offensive juggernauts.”
Mets offense is not the only inconsistency right now…. they are also having problems with their defense and pitching. Overall, an inconsistent team.
Actually the rotation is starting to really roll.
We’ve now had 5 “quality starts” in our last 6 games, and Santana and Maine each have 6 of them out of 8 outings.
Plus, Sosa’s gone now, and Smith and Wagner have been big pluses in the ‘pen.
There are still concerns in relief, but the offense is the big inconsistency right now. Like I said above, there are signs the bats might be moving in the right direction, and if we start hitting with RISP, look out!
“Their offensive numbers are hardly earth-shattering: 10th in the NL with 173 runs.”
Uh, they’ve scored 183 runs, and they’ve played fewer games than just about everybody else (don’t feel like adding up other teams’ totals, but I feel fairly confident in saying they’ve played the fewest games in the league).
4.95 runs-per-game is good enough for (insert cartoon “doodly-doodly-doop” noise) third in the league.
And of course I have to put the obligatory comment that ALL of those came in blowouts. You know some idiot was getting ready to post it.
Not saying they aren’t inconsistent, but it could be worse.
In the meantime it’s worthwhile to note that the Mets have played a much tougher schedule than either the Braves or the Phils. It’s still a bit too early to tell just who they are.
Just did a quick, unscientific survey of the Mets’ game log…
They’ve scored 4, 5 or 6 runs in 18 of their 37 games. They’ve scored 3 or fewer runs in 10 of their 37 games. They’ve scored 7 runs or more in 9 of their 37 games.
So they’re within a run of their average runs-per-game ~49% of the time.
By comparison, the 2006 Mets at this point had scored 4, 5 or 6 runs in 13 games; 3 runs or fewer in 13 games and 7 runs or more in 11 games.
And after 37 games in 2006, the Mets had scored 188 runs, just five more than the Mets have now.
Yes, fewest games played in the Majors
Strangely, the Red Sox have played the most. You’d normally expect them to have been rained out as much as anyone at this time of year, playing in Boston and all.
I am very confident in the offense. Reyes, Beltran, and Wright haven’t even really gotten hot yet. Alou will be able to hit .300 when he is 60, Church has been fantastic, and Delgado seems to be seeing the ball better lately.
My biggest concerns are obviously the bullpen and health and with Sosa gone I am much more confident in the bullpen.
Why is Murphy wasting our time with meangless stats like runs when no one has played the same number of games. Mets are 6th in OBP, 9th in OPS, 10th in slugging, and around 5th or so in R/G. If he’s going to sit there and cherrypick meangless stats, then his statements are pointless and misleading.