Big leagues
Published May 23, 2024 at 8:48 pm ET
Tyrone Taylor played his first five major league seasons with the Brewers and didn’t love trips to Busch Stadium to face NL Central rivals.
The Cardinals’ home park has long been pitcher-friendly, with plenty of foul territory behind home plate that lends itself to foul outs.
This year, however, he enjoyed the impactful atmosphere of an early May series in St. Louis.
“Seeing the ball fly there compared to here (in Queens),” Taylor said recently, “I thought, ‘Holy shit.’”
Citi Field has not been kind to the Mets or their opponents in the
dish this season. fake images
The Mets begin a 10-game homestand Friday that will likely be more welcomed by the club’s pitchers than its position players.
Citi Field has never been a desirable place for hitters, but 2024 has begun with such offensive ineptitude (from both the Mets and the visitors) that all-time records are at least on the radar.
Through 24 games, the Mets have posted a .609 OPS in Flushing that entered play Thursday as the worst in the majors, and not by a long shot: 29th were the White Sox at .634.
Through the small sample size of a few months in cold, windy weather, that .609 home OPS would be the second-worst for any team since 1977, trailing only the 2022 A’s (.605 OPS).
Offensive struggles are felt in both shelters.
Despite the horrible offensive numbers, the Mets have won 10 of 24 games at home because their pitching has been similarly dominant at home and limited their opponents to just a .596 OPS.
The horrors of the hitting and the excellence of the pitching add up to Mets fans who show up to games seeing the worst display of offense in baseball this season.
Hitters at Citi Field are hitting .202/.290/.313. In what has been a poor season for Major League offense, no park has taken a bigger hit than the Mets.
Reed Garrett celebrates after coming out of the sixth inning during a Mets game against the Braves earlier this season. Robert Sabo for the NY Post
According to Statcast’s Park Factors analytical tool, Citi Field, generally one of the worst but not the worst overall, has been the worst park affected this year.
“He always plays big,” Mets hitting coach Jeremy Barnes said. “Until now everything has been worse. Weather, cold, April, we don’t know (why). I don’t know. “We’ve seen a lot of balls, especially around the 105 (mph) mark, just float around and not go away.”
Early season weather is at least one component.
Last year, the Mets did not play their 24th game at Citi Field until June 1, the result of several rainouts and a busy schedule in the first few months of play.
Through 24 Mets home games last season, every hitter at Citi Field hit .231 with a .702 OPS.
This year’s Mets played their 24th home game on May 14. Perhaps having more home games earlier in the season, in colder weather months, is partly to blame.
A general softening of the offense throughout the game is surely also taken into account.
The average hitter in 2024 entered play Thursday with a .699 OPS, which would be the lowest in a season since 1989 (.695). The average hitter posted a .734 OPS last year.
Harrison Bader after grounding out in the 10th inning against the Phillies. Bill Kostroun/New York Post
The Mets, however, have seen more hype in their divisions than anyone.
Last year, Buck Showalter’s group scored 14 points better at home (.731 OPS) than on the road (.717 OPS). This year, Carlos Mendoza’s offense has been 142 points worse at home, from a .751 OPS on the road to a .609 mark in Queens.
“Our two-way stats speak for themselves,” Brandon Nimmo said after the Mets were swept in Cleveland on Wednesday. “When we go on tour, we do much better. I think that will change, not necessarily change, but the local statistics will improve as the weather improves in the northeast.”
“All we can do is worry about the process,” Barnes added. “Swing the right pitches, take good swings.
“And if we hit an exit velocity of 105 (exit velocity per hour) and 28 (degree launch angle) and it doesn’t go over the fence, it is what it is.”
Another possible factor: perhaps strongest winds at Citi Field yet. Entering Thursday’s game, when Major League hitters had hit a pitch at least 104 mph with a launch angle between 28 and 35 (solid ingredients for home runs) in every other ballpark, they were hitting .833 with home runs. about 83 percent of the time. (314 in 377 at-bats).
Hitters in Queens saw a drop in those types of balls, hitting .769 with 10 home runs in 13 at-bats (about 77 percent).
Included in that subset: a Nimmo drive against the Cardinals that died on the warning track in right-center field and became an out; a 404-foot shot by Pete Alonso on May 11 that Atlanta’s Michael Harris II caught while hitting the center field wall.
“People have been smoking balls,” Taylor said, “and they haven’t really gotten as far as I thought.”
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