One of the first things you learn about baseball is that pitchers aren’t good hitters. In the national league, late in games, there are bench players that are suppose to come off the bench and pinch HIT. The goal is to get hits when the manager calls their number.
Unfortunately for the Mets their bench players either don’t understand the goal or are just not very good at their job. Mets pinch hitters this year are 4-31 (.129). The job of the pinch hitter is to give the team he is batting for a better chance to get on base then the pitcher (or sometimes (but not in the Mets case) for a position player). Jon Niese is 3-11(.273) which is 144 points better. That is not a good sign for the Mets bench which consists of, Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.111), John Mayberry Jr. (.103), Anthony Recker (.176), Ruben Tejada, (.226) as well as newly called up Johnny Monell whose only had 3 at bats. Now the higher the batting average the better, when you have no one batting over .226 the bench is in need of serious help.
David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud are coming back, eventually, we hope. Even though David Wright had a setback hopefully he will be back soon and there will be an odd man out. Is it Murphy, Herrera or Flores? You’ve hear me before say to stay away from trades and I’m sticking with that. My proposal is send Murphy to the bench.
Yes he is an all-star, yes he will break out of his early season slump, but Dilson Herrera plays a better second base, and as mentioned above there is a major lack of bench production. Although Mayberry is currently 3-23 so far against lefties he has been a specialist against them throughout his career. Murphy and his lefty bat goes well against righties. Late in games it will be nice to have that lefty bat that you know has pop against hard throwing relievers.
