Forget the splits! Michael Conforto should be the everyday starting left-fielder for the Mets.
Despite the fact he is hitting .182 against lefties, Conforto’s .286 average in 45 games has to be more convincing than starting Michael Cuddyer and Juan Lagares, though their averages are similar.
Since being called up back on July 24, Conforto, in games he has started this season, has led the Mets to an impressive 25-13 record, which translates to a .657 winning percentage.
Meanwhile, the Amazins’ are a mere .500 team without him in the starting lineup.
Conforto just continues to show an outstanding ability to go the other way, and with power. It certainly makes you think of a former Met named Mike Piazza, who could spray the ball to the opposite field with such ease.
“It’s something that I have worked on a lot,” Conforto commented. “In college, I wanted to be able to hit the ball hard everywhere on the field. I worked on it in batting practice, worked on it in games just to make myself more of a complete hitter.”
Mets’ manager Terry Collins certainly understands the special kind of player he has, who by the way is only 22 years old.
“This guy has got some kind of power,” Collins stated. “Of all the things I heard, it’s one of the things that has really surprised me. Not just the opposite-field power, but the power itself. I mean, this guy is going to be a good hitter, but a home run hitter, too. This guy has enough juice to put up big numbers.”
On Monday night, in a game that New York desperately needed to get back on track and reduce its magic number, Conforto showed off that power in the bottom of the second inning, as he took the Braves’ lone bright spot in their rotation, Shelby Miller, out to left-center field on a line drive.
“That was the cherry on top,” said Conforto, who was named the Mets’ Minor League Player of the Year prior to first pitch, about the home run. “(It was an) awesome day…Couldn’t have gone any better.”
When asked about how vital the team’s series-opening 4-0 win over the Braves was, Conforto replied: “There wasn’t a whole lot of tension, but we understood that it was an important game.”
While anyone can agree that there is more than enough depth in that Met outfield, Conforto is one of the key pieces driving that magic number down.
The number is now at 7.