Wright and Granderson have failed to lead the charge

After a disappointing stretch by the Mets in which they’ve lost five out of seven games to the contending Giants and Nationals, the fan base is ready to put a fork in the season and call it “a wrap.”  Though still mathematically alive with 47 games to play, the Mets chances of making a legitimate run has waned, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. Despite the presence of experienced and reliable offensive depth in the lineup, the two players with the lengthy resumes are the main culprits of the team’s latest failures.

It’s fair to say David Wright and Curtis Granderson are the leaders of this team.  Wright, of course, is the branded captain, but Granderson has taken upon himself a prominent leadership role since signing with the team in the offseason. The 33 year old veteran is a terrific clubhouse presence and his personality, work ethic, and success translate well as the vocal leader meshed with Wright’s steady bravado which is cemented within the fibers of the team. The problem with leadership, however, is it fails to exude properly when the wielders are not holding up their end of the bargain on the baseball diamond.

Wright has been an enigma all season.  Despite getting off to a fairly good start, his streakiness at the plate the past few months has been noticeable due to the inconsistency of the offense as a whole.  The captain was supposed to be the rock in the middle of the lineup, along with Daniel Murphy and Granderson, tasked to get on base and drive in runs consistently with the hope that the supporting cast would excel on a lower scale… but that just hasn’t happened. Wright is currently batting .269 with only eight HR and 54 RBIs through 108 games.  He’s also experiencing career lows in OBP (.326) and SLG (.384); alarming numbers considering the caliber of player Mets fans are used to seeing.  Of course, there is the factor with Wright’s shoulder which has been bothering him the past two months as a result of a head first slide.  To his credit, he’s played through pain and discomfort, but his swing is just not providing any consistent spans of line drives.  The third spot in the lineup has not been this barren in years.

As for Granderson, his season has been pretty much three-fold:An awful start, followed by a ten week on-base barrage before finally hitting the skids culminating with this post All-Star break funk.  In the 20 games since the break, Granderson has batted .162 with only one HR and two RBIs. While it’s understoodleading off isn’t your typical RBI position in the lineup, a meretwo RBIs in a 20 game span is a staggering display of futility.  Couple those RBIs (no pun intended) with Wright’s six post break RBIs and you can see how the two bestowed leaders should take the brunt of the blame for the team’s latest tailspin.

The pitching has been solid for the most part, especially the resurgent bullpen, but the team just hasn’t scored runs despite going 9-11 through this stretch. So far in the second half, theMets have averaged only 2.9 runs per game while batting only .208 with ten HR.  Murphy and Lucas Duda have been thefueling bats that have enabled the team to persevere through close, low scoring ball games initially, but this last week has seen the lineup fall flat.

There are still some chances of the Mets regaining their mojo, especially Wright and Granderson.  They play eight of the next 11 games against the lowly Phillies and Cubs, including three games at home against the NL East Nationals.  If there is still life in this group, the leaders of this team need to do exactly that and start driving the ball with authority the way they have in the past.  Wright and Granderson have the majority support of thefan base; perhaps they charge “once more unto the breach” and lead this team to greater heights before this season is lost for good.