In the first 5 games of this road trip the Mets have scored 35 runs and are 4-1 heading in to Sunday's matchup, where they will take another crack at their first series sweep since June 24 when they took 3 from Oakland.
Beltran is having a nice trip and is 7-21 with 2 HR's, 6 RBI, and 5 runs scored. Wright has also been strong and seems to be getting in to a bit of a grove going 9-22 with 4 runs scored, and 5 RBI, including 3 2B's. The wright/beltran 3-4 combo is taking form.
However, the force in the middle of this lineup driving this offense by coming up with huge hits and driving in runs is one Moises Alou. Yes, I still believe Beltran is the key and that this offense will stall should Beltran regress to pre DL form but Alou has been a monster and the the right handed power bat they have been missing all season. In the month of August Alou is putting up ridiculous #'s! He's hitting .349 with a 1.120 OPS, 7 HR's and 16 RBI in 16 games (including 8-23 with 2 HR and 7 RBI on the road trip).
Attention NL pitchers, Moises Alou can, in fact, hit a fastball. You may want to take note of that. Just saying.
The Mets have not a had right handed power bat in the middle of their lineup since the days of the one and only Mike Piazza. Sure, this lineup has several swith hitting options and so far this year they have performed pretty well against left handed pitching. But that is not the same as having a right handed crusher that can flat out hit, both for power and average. If he can stay on the field and continue to perform this team will continue to put the runs up that we all thought they were cabable of putting up. Since his return from the DL that # has been 6.4 runs per game.
update by Cooper 7:21 pm ...
To add to Fink's post, SNY put up a very telling statistic early in today's sweeping triumph over the Nots.
Beltran AND Alou both play 24-12 record, 5.7 runs scored
Beltran OR Alou play, 40-34 record, 4.5 runs scored
Neither play, 5-4 record, 3.9 runs scored
Those stats don't lie my friends.
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1 comment:
Just out of curiosity, what % of the Yankee lineup has been on the dl this year????
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