Lucas Duda had been nowhere to be found over the club’s most recent six week stretch of games.
He entered play on Friday having gone 19-for-123 with 42 strikeouts and only nine RBI in 34 games since May 31, during which the team had gone 15-19.
But his evening on Friday started off with a bang – he hit a critical, three-run home run in the first inning.
Progress.
Then on Saturday, Duda did it again. He hit a solo home run ahead of Matt Harvey’s two-run home run in the fifth inning, giving him two home runs and four RBI in this series.
More progress.
Duda now has 12 home runs on the year – he is now on a 162-game pace of 22 home runs in 2015. He also has 38 RBI, tying him with Wilmer Flores for the team lead.
“It doesn’t mean a whole lot,” Duda explained about the significance of hitting home runs in consecutive games. “There’s still a long way to go, 80-something games. It was just nice to get the win today.”
It may not mean a whole lot to him personally, but it’s sure meant a ton to the team, and something they’ve badly missed over the last six weeks of baseball.
It hasn’t been due to a lack of effort for Duda. After Tuesday’s game in San Francisco, during which he was listless in an 0-for-4 showing against Matt Cain and the Giants, Duda was seen with hitting coach Kevin Long with three laptops open with video of his at-bats playing over and over again as both were searching for answers to the deep malaise he had been in with the bat. He also works tirelessly in the cages with Long and assistant hitting Pat Roessler, attempting to execute necessary fixes to his timing, leg kick, and swing.
Perhaps they found something? He’s just 2-for-9 since that game, but those two hits are the home runs he hit on Friday and Saturday.
Terry Collins is hopeful this is the beginning of Duda’s resurgence.
“This guy is going to put big numbers on the board,” Collins said after Saturday’s win. “I think it’s gonna mean he’s gonna have a big second half. I think you’re gonna see Lucas Duda do what we all thought he was gonna do.”
The Mets need that to happen. Even if the Mets get a bat before the trade deadline, they’re going nowhere if that’s the only guy hitting. Duda simply has to come around. He’s the centerpiece of this lineup and the very definition in which Sandy Alderson constructed this offense. If his bat is absent, they just can’t score a lot of runs.
And the last two days are proof of that.
Just Mets 