New York Mets: April Report

If there has been one surprise team in baseball coming out the month of April, it has to be the New York Mets. The Mets are four games above .500 which is a mark they didn't see themselves at all last season. Manager Terry Collins has constantly divvied up the batting order and lineup each game, especially since OF Juan Lagares went on the 15-day DL.

The first base position was a question mark coming into the beginning of April. Nobody knew if Ike Davis was finally going to come out of his hitting woes that has plagued him the last few years. Terry Collins wasn't going to take a chance as from the start he had Lucas Duda, Ike Davis, and Josh Satin all rotating in and out of the starting lineup. Come the middle of April, the problem had been solved as the New York Mets traded Ike Davis to the Pittsburgh Pirates for right-handed pitcher Zack Thornton and a player to be named later.

This gave Terry Collins now only two choices at first base: When facing left-handed starting pitchers, Collins likes to go with the right-handed batting first-baseman Josh Satin in place of Lucas Duda. In fourteen at bats against left-handed pitchers, Satin has a .214 average with three RBIs but what stands out is his On-Base-Percentage (OBP) which sits at .389 right now against left-handed pitching.

New York Mets' First Baseman vs. Left-Handed Pitching

With Lagares going down mid-way through April with a hamstring injury and Granderson struggling mightily at the plate, Terry Collins has had players such as Kirk Nieuwenhuis and 40 year-old veteran Bobby Abreu starting in the outfield. Nieuwenhuis has been back and fourth between New York and their Triple-A affiliate – Las Vegas – the last few years and Abreu has been off almost everyone’s radar the last five years. Despite this, both these players have contributed to the Mets success with solid at-bats and great fielding.

Kirk Neuwenhuis and Bobby Abreu Batting Statistics:

Shortstop Ruben Tejada has never been a prominent hitter and the month of April has seen him struggle up at the plate once again. Collins has opted some nights to play Omar Quintanilla, who started a majority of the games last season because of Tejada's struggling bat. With Quintanilla also not being a force at the plate and at times a liability defensively, he has proven in his few appearances this year that he is a suitable back up when Tejada struggles.

The Mets' rookie catcher – Travis d'Arnaud – and back up Anthony Recker have been another duo Collins has switched in and out of the lineup. Travis d'Arnaud struggled to began the year but has found his average creep up above .200 in the past few weeks. Recker hasn't been spectacular either at the plate, but the stat that does jump out is that in the six games Anthony Recker has started this season, the New York Mets have won all six of those games.

It is very rare to see a team who changes their lineup as much as New York has in the first month of the season be this successful at it. This could also be due to the fact the Mets find themselves at the bottom of the league in hitting and Terry Collins is trying to find a way to get veterans like David Wright and Curtis Granderson going.

Not many fans are worried about David Wright as he is a .300 career hitter and has always emerged out of his early season slumps. But Curtis Granderson is only hit .136 through the month of April. That number is something you see out of a batter off the bench who only has 12 at bats on the season so far. Granderson, though, has only 12 base hits in 88 at bats striking out 29 of those times. A scary sight to see for a guy who the Mets just signed for $60 million over four years.

After having batted 4th in the lineup the first couple weeks of the year, Colllins chose to place Granderson 2nd in the lineup to see if that would get him better pitchers and more chances to catch a hot streak. The experiment wasn't successful as that average stayed below .150.

There are glimpses of him slowly coming out of the slump. He leads the Mets in walk-off hits with a sacrifice fly in the 14th inning to defeat the Atlanta Braves on Easter and a scorching RBI single in the bottom of the 9th to defeat the Miami Marlins on April 25th.

Curtis Granderson is a veteran and is capable of hitting 40 home runs a season, but New York is a tough place to play and fans will get impatient if he continues to fail to produce.

Looking at the batting statistics, it is tough to see why the New York Mets have been surprisingly successful in April. But it has been the one thing nobody saw coming into the season: Pitching.

After losing Matt Harvey this season to Tommy Jon surgery he had in October, the New York Mets signed veteran Bartolo Colon in the off-season who is coming off a fantastic year last year in Oakland, but the rest of the staff in the rotation are names not to many people will recognize.

Both Dillon Gee and Jon Niese have been on the Mets staff for a number of years now. They are both middle of the rotation type of pitchers who won't overpower you with a flaming fastball or strike out 10 batters a game. Instead, these two pitchers are guys who will pitch the ball low and trust the defense to make the plays behind them. Gee has a 2-1 record and 2.88 ERA coming into May and Niese has a similar line with a 2-2 record and posting a 2.20 ERA.

Bartolo Colon has been the Mets third-man in the starting rotation since Niese returned and besides a shelling he took against the Los Angeles Angels back on April 13th, he has been solid. A veteran who challenges hitters every pitch, Colon has thrown his fastball 90% of the time this year just daring batters to swing. Along with both Gee and Niese, Colon throws this pitch not to strike out hitters but to allow his defense to make the plays in the field.

Zack Wheeler and Jenrry Mejia are the final two pitchers in the rotation and despite their inexperience pitching in the majors, they have shown why so many New York Mets fans are excited about the future. Wheeler is a hard throwing pitcher who's fastball reaches the upper 90s and has a hard breaking slider that makes Wheeler almost untouchable if he has it going. Zack Wheeler's only struggles have come in the 5th and 6th inning where he seems to run out of gas and his fastball stays flat and is only breaking 90 mph. He has a 1-2 record with a 3.99 ERA at the end of April.

Jenrry Mejia was a question mark coming into the beginning of the year for New York. He had to fight to earn his spot as the 5th starting pitcher on the rotation in Spring Training and has surpassed many scouts expectations on well he has progressed. Mejia tied up hitters with his hard-cutting cut-fastball all through April and pitched an absolute gem against the reigning National League Champions, St. Louis Cardinals back on April 21st. Mejia has a 3-0 record with a 3.49 ERA and is tied with Wheeler at 31 strikeouts which leads the team.

The New York Mets find themselves 12th in the league in pitching at the end of April and it hasn't only been because of their starting rotation.

Carlos Torres has been lights out when coming out of the bullpen in the 7th and 8th innings. With a 2-0 record and a 1.20 ERA in 14 appearances, Torres has solidified a Mets' bullpen that was a mess at the beginning of April.

The Mets' closer Bobby Parnell was lost for the year after Opening Day to surgery and veteran Jose Valverde took over the role for a couple weeks. Valverde severely struggled and the job was given to another veteran, Kyle Farnsworth. With Farnsworth having his struggles as well in the 9th inning, Terry Collins is still skeptical on who will be the everyday closer. Even Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has been a starting pitcher his whole career, got his first career save in April and Collins isn't crossing off the idea of him taking over the role in the future.

It has been small, old-school baseball that propelled the New York Mets to the success they had in April. If the solid pitching and timely hitting can continue, New York will find themselves in an unfamiliar pennant race come September.