There are three things that we hold as inevitable in life: death, taxes and that chicks dig the long ball. It could be why there are so many female fans on the bandwagon. The Mets really are socking that ball. Michael Conforto and Daniel Murphy went deep yesterday. The team has nine homers in its last seven days, 22 in the last 14 days and 47 in the last 28 days.
If you told anyone watching the club in June that the 2015 Mets would finish with one of the top 10 HR totals in franchise history, they would have laughed at you. The Mets hit 21 homers in June, a respectable total but not one that would have lent observers to think this was anything noteworthy, even for a team without a great HR history.
The Mets had 75 HR at the All-Star break, good for eighth place in the 15-team National League. The franchise mark for homers in a season is the 200 hit by the 2006 club. The 10th-most is the 160 hit by the 2002 squad. New York had played 89 games at the break, so they were homering at a rate of 0.8 per game. More homers are hit in warmer weather, so it’s likely that the pace would improve the rest of July and August. Still, predicting the team to match the 75 homers hit before the break would have been an aggressive pick and that still would have left them 10 shy of 10th place on the all-time team list.
But then August happened. The Mets hit 45 homers that month, as many as the previous two months combined. On a per-game basis, that was exactly double what they hit in the first half of the season. And the crazy thing is that pace has improved so far here in September. The Mets are averaging 1.8 HR per game after 12 contests.
Right now, New York has hit 156 homers on the season, good for 12th place on the franchise list. With 19 games still to play, if they continue swatting balls over the fence at their current September pace, the Mets will finish with 190 homers, which will place them fourth all time in Mets history. That’s pretty optimistic, but even if they fall dramatically off that pace and fall back to the 0.8 rate per game of the season’s first half, the Mets will finish with 171 homers, which will slot them into 10th place and one homer shy of a tie for eighth.
The Mets have seven players in double digits in homers, led by Curtis Granderson with 23 and Lucas Duda with 21. In all, 22 different players have homered for the Mets in 2015, including pitchers Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard.
It’s quite a difference from 1980, when the New York Daily News used to run daily comparisons between the Mets and 1961 Roger Maris, to see if the team could beat the then single-season home run leader. In Game 161, rookie Hubie Brooks hit his first career homer, allowing the Mets to tie Maris.
I fell in love with a Mets team that stole bases and made people pay with their legs. I have equally fallen in love with this team that is always 1 hit away from doing damage.
Which year did they make people pay with their legs? If you don’t mind me asking.
It wasnt that long ago that the Mets had speed up and down the lineup with Reyes, Pagan, Beltran, Wright, etc stealing bases. They also had Endy and Luis and others.
It is a scarey thought that the Mets best homerun hitter in 2014 with 30 homeruns has not hit a homerun since August 2nd! C’mon Lucas, join the party. Offense is Fun!
Some nights the Mets start a team with double digit home run hitters at every position. Nice job Sandy.