Power Shortage

An Orange & Blue Lover, Wario, writes in:

In hindsight, thinking back to last year this time - the Mets had hit just around 105 home runs, give or take a few.

But this year with Ghand-ster Manuel preaching his 80 pitch batting practice in spring training;

“He put an emphasis on situational hitting with a drill that required players to hit 80 consecutive balls to the opposite field in a five-minute span -- more than four times as many swings as they would normally take at a time during batting practice.”

the Muts, (as seen in picture below) have hit a mere 50 home runs this season. This number is good enough for the league‘s lowest. Even the Pirates (56) have more. The Kansas City Royals have more (76). And finally, even the Nationals, who are 162 games out of first place, have more (56)!


We understand that our core players are injured; we don’t need Mahatma Manuel telling us this after every game (A.K.A. - every loss). To add onto this absurdity, even our starters now, have a higher payroll than those teams listed above combined. Would it kill this team to hit and win a game?

When the Mets started this drill, Manuel was quoted as saying,

"It gets you doing things right. When the fatigue starts and you have to keep going, you have to use your hands. That's the idea."

Apparently, it does not get you doing things right. But one thing is for sure, the fatigue does set in.

To tire the players out in spring training, draining them of much needed energy while also teaching them to play small ball, Jerry has cost us more runs than he has given us. Granted there have been many injuries and we don't expect the long ball from Alex Cora and Luis Castillo but c'mon already. Can we hit 3 run home run at least once a week? Are we asking for too much?

Memo to Jerry: Maybe next year - hold off on the drill.

On second thought, maybe forward this message to the then Mets manager.