David Wright got on base all five times he came to the plate Saturday. He drew three walks, fired a single to center field and then hit a home run his last trip to the plate. Wright now has 11 extra-base hits in 112 PA. Last season he had 12 in 174. His 2016 SLG of .472 is 38 points higher than a year ago, despite having an AVG 34 points lower than he did in 2015. His .213 ISO is above his .195 career mark.

No one knew what to expect from Wright coming into the season. Our official preseason forecast of .275/.360/.425 was the most optimistic one out there but we only foresaw 391 PA. Right now Wright sits at .258/.405/.472 and at his current pace he’s on target to play 134 games and land 620+ PA, according to ESPN.

Of course the elephant in the room is the condition of his back and if it will let him play a full season, even with all of the treatment he goes through each day to get on the field and regular days off. In last night’s game, the announcers speculated that he would get the day off today. In the big picture, that’s probably a good idea. However, after how locked in he looked each time to the plate, it would be great if he could go out there again on Sunday. Wright even stole a base last night, and attempted to go two other times but the batter fouled off the pitch.

And it’s not just last night. All three games against the Padres, Wright has had good ABs. In 13 trips to the plate, he’s reached base eight times. That’s a touch deceiving, as he’s drawn six walks. But he’s been making solid contact, too. The two balls he hit fair last night had exit velocities of 107.5 and 106.2, the former being the single to center off the lefty, showing how well that ball was hit. Wright’s weakest exit velocity against the Padres has been a ball with an 84.7 exit velocity.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing this series is that Wright has fanned just two times. Actually, his increased contact has come in his last eight games, when he’s whiffed just five times in 35 PA for a 14.3 K%. Compare that to his first 16 games of the season, when he had 28 Ks in 77 PA for a 36.4 K%.

Early in the year, it appeared that Wright couldn’t handle a good fastball. To compensate, he was cheating by swinging earlier, which left him vulnerable to offspeed pitches. Here are his swing-and-miss rates his first 16 games of the season, courtesy of Texas Leaguers:

Sliders – 15.1%

Four-seamers – 16.5%

Cutters – 17.4%

Curves – 22.7%

Changeups – 29.6%

And here are the numbers for his last eight games:

Cutters – 7.1%

Four-seamers – 7.7%

He has not swung and missed at any other offering. He’s seen 14 changeups and curves, the pitches that game him the most trouble earlier, only swung at three of them and did not miss, fouling one off and putting the other two in play.

Here are the starting pitchers Wright has faced in his last eight games and their average fastball velocity:

Jon Moscot – 91.4

Jake Peavy – 88.7

Madison Bumgarner – 90.7

Mike Foltynewicz – 94.2

Matt Wisler – 93.3

Colin Rea – 92.4

Drew Pomeranz – 90.6

James Shields – 89.9

Not exactly the biggest collection of flame throwers you’ll ever come across but the two Braves pitchers have more velocity than name recognition.

So, is Wright’s recent hot hitting – .318/.559/.591 – the result of just facing starting pitchers who couldn’t blow him away with velocity? Perhaps, but let’s not pretend that all he faced in the first 16 games were guys like Jose Fernandez and Stephen Strasburg. His most PA have come against Jerad Eickhoff (90.6) and Jeremy Hellickson (89.4) and he’s 3-13 with 4 Ks and 0 BB against those two non-elite fastball guys.

When the Mets moved into Citi Field, Wright posted his three highest K% seasons the first three years of the new park. But he rebounded in 2012 and 2013 to put up Shea-like K% and had monster years at the plate, too, posting wOBAs of .376 and .391, respectively. But the strikeout rate has crept back up. Right now it sits at 29.5% and it seems unlikely he’ll be able to keep a wOBA of .386 if he continues to strike out three times each 10 times he comes to bat.

But given that Wright has made a drastic reduction of his strikeouts lately, it’s not completely unreasonable to think the strikeouts will continue to decrease as the season progresses. One thing that should be mentioned is that like the pitchers, Wright was eased into Spring Training action. Perhaps Grapefruit League play did not properly prepare him to open the season.

The Mets are learning as they go as to how to best handle Wright and the spinal stenosis. It would be wrong to crucify them for how they handled Wright this Spring. Perhaps going slow is what has allowed him to be on the field at all here in May. The bottom line is that Wright is playing both better and more often than what most everyone expected here the first five weeks of the year. May that trend continue the remainder of the season.

Share this: Email

Facebook

Print

Reddit

Twitter

More

Pinterest

LinkedIn



Tumblr

