Mets using Mike Trout video to get this slugger unleashed
PITTSBURGH — Mike Trout didn’t hurt the Mets terribly last weekend, when he made his first regular-season appearance at Citi Field. The Mets took two of three from Trout and the Angels, after all, despite Trout putting up a nifty .500/.643/1.000 line over the three days.
Now baseball’s best player has been helping the Mets, unknowingly, in absentia. Guess whose video footage Kevin Long has been showing to Lucas Duda recently?
“What he does, he can’t stand to get jammed, so he tends to make contact too far out in front, which makes him very susceptible to off-speed stuff,” Long said before Duda hit a solo homer in the Mets’ 5-4 10-inning loss to the Pirates on Saturday night at PNC Park. “We were watching some Mike Trout video and watching how deep he lets the ball travel. Sometimes a visual of another player can help. It did in this case.”
The Mets pounded the Pirates, 8-1, in Friday night’s series opener, and Duda played a critical role in the blowout. The over-hated first baseman doubled twice, driving in a pair of runs, and drew a walk, giving him a Trout-esque .500/.611/.929 slash line before Saturday’s loss.
“Like I told him, ‘You’ve got to keep going,’” Long said. “‘If you have a month like this and just prove to yourself you can do this, you turn into one of the best hitters in baseball.’”
Duda forever has been an enigma, a powerful man with impressive patience at the plate who can be awfully streaky — hence the over-hated status and the Mets’ hope that he can be a driving force in a turnaround from this awful start. Concurrently, the fact that such potential has been tapped only occasionally, along with the development of Mets first-base prospect Dominic Smith, makes it likely Duda, drafted and developed by the Mets, will sign elsewhere next offseason when he becomes a free agent.
“I’m just trying to hit the ball right now,” Duda said Saturday, when asked if his impending freedom
lurked anywhere on his radar. “Coming out of that rough patch, I’m just happy I can contribute. Furthest thing from my head.”
Funny thing about that rough patch to which he referred. That would be his first nine games after returning from the disabled list (hyperextended left elbow), when he registered four hits, two doubles and two singles in 34 at-bats. Brutal, right? Except he drew eight walks over that 34-plate-apperance stretch, meaning that he compiled a more than acceptable .353 on-base percentage.
“I think that was the only thing that saved me, getting the walks,” Duda said.
“That’s always been a strength of his,” Long said. “He’s always been an on-base guy. His strike-zone discipline has always been above average.”
In his first professional season, with Class-A Brooklyn in 2007, Duda recorded a .398 OBP. This ability has been with him since before the Mets drafted him with their seventh-round pick in ’07.
The skill, Duda said, comes from his father, David, who coached him in Little League in California. David Duda pounded the idea in Lucas’ head to “Wait for a pitch you can handle.” Even nowadays, Lucas Duda said his dad “is still on me about swinging at pitches [I shouldn’t].”
It is the foundation of Duda’s success. It comes from the foundation of his childhood. It could be a key to this Mets season.
And if this can be the springboard to Duda putting up numbers similar to or even better than his successful 2014 and 2015 campaigns, then the Mets should consider sending Trout a thank-you note. From the Mets’ standpoint, the lifelong Phillies fan Trout will optimally help the Mets rebound in 2017 and help Duda make some good money elsewhere in 2018 and beyond.