☀️ Good Morning:
When you write a newsletter every morning, it’s hard to say you are ever short for words.
But I’m having a hard time describing what we just experienced on a Monday night in May.
This is why you become a sports fan. It’s a hobby that can turn an ordinary night into something miraculous.
Within a matter of hours, we saw the Islanders win the draft lottery, the Knicks upset the Celtics and the Mets take down the Diamondbacks (while the Yankees blew another late lead).
That’s for a certain kind of NY sports fan. As an added bonus for me, I also saw the Toronto Maple Leafs earn their biggest playoff win in 20+ years.
If our football teams could figure something out, there would be no better time to be alive. From the Johnnies to the Knicks to the Mets, it’s finally rewarding to root for this side of town.
You can read more about the Isles’ lucky night over at Isles Fix. And take in everything about the Knicks’ big win with Knicks Film School.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
🍎 Quality > Quantity
The Mets are 23–13 record and +57 run differential, so it’s hard to say they could be even better, but watching the lineup on a nightly basis is still cause for self-inflicted hair removal with runners in scoring position.
Only six teams have a lower batting average in these situations. Worse yet, entering play Monday, the hitters you expect to be the most clutch have been the opposite:
Juan Soto is batting .143 with runners on second and/or third,
while Francisco Lindor is batting .179
and upstart Mark Vientos has only five hits in 47 plate appearances.
So what gives?
Well, first, the simplicity of focusing on “hitting with runners in scoring position.” There’s no other situation where getting a simple base hit carries such significance, and rightfully so. A hit with a runner on second can drive in a run.
But just like in every other situation, batting average doesn’t tell the entire story. If a team goes 3-for-11 with runners in scoring position, there’s a difference between those three hits being infield singles versus monster home runs.
This seems obvious, but it’s worth considering when looking at how the Mets have scored their runs this season. If we expand our view to include home runs with any runner on base, we find the Mets rank around league average, with 15. There has been some slug.
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