Through the daily lineup juggling, the maneuvering of people in and out of the lineup, Terry Collins has been unable to find a solution which provides the necessary offense to be competitive on a daily basis.
But there’s one player in the lineup who has at least shown an uptick in power – Curtis Granderson.
Granderson currently has a four-game hitting streak, going 5-for-13 with three home runs during that span.
He now leads the team in home runs with 11, and has a .752 OPS for the season. Five of his 11 home runs have come in June, and he has an .822 OPS this month as well, far and away leading the club in both categories this month.
So, that begs the question: With the club desperately seeking more offense, why is Terry Collins leaving Granderson in the leadoff spot?
“Who’s getting on?” Collins said after Wednesday’s loss. “So we leave him where he’s at because he’s doing a good job, he’s getting on, he’s hitting some home runs.” Why would we disturb the one guy who’s, right now, swinging the bat like we want to. So we’re going to leave him where he is.”
That’s not totally illogical.
However, given the nature of Lucas Duda’s struggles – he’s 13-for-his-last-75 and seeing a lot of breaking balls outside the zone in the process – it might benefit him to have Granderson’s sudden power threat batting behind him, which could conceivably get the guys in front of Duda more pitches to hit.
Of course, the caveat to that is those guys actually attack those pitches, execute and get on-base.
There’s no question going back-to-back with two left-handed hitters isn’t particularly ideal. But, what’s going on right now – which is the complete absence of base runners and production – is much less ideal than that.
Part of the Mets problem during this recent stretch of losses is they continue to do the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result, and the same thing continues to transpire. Sure, Granderson maybe their best leadoff hitter, but that alone isn’t enough. If he’s getting on-base and hitting for power, at least for the time being, the Mets have everything to gain by changing things up and putting him in the part of the lineup they originally signed him to be in.
Granderson is agreeable with any change that might help the team win.
“Wherever Terry wants to put me, that’s where I think the best spot is,” Granderson said, according to Mike Vorkunov of the Star Ledger. “If it happens to be in the top middle or bottom, so far, out of my year and a half here, I’ve batted in a lot of spots. Right now I’m leading off. So that’s where I happen to be. If things happen to change, I’ll adjust accordingly.”
Again, they have nothing to lose by trying something new offensively.
Just Mets 