These three words will make a difference for the Mets at Citi Field.
Beat the Ballpark.
On the road the Mets are a good hitting team and have been for quite some time.
All the evidence points to one big small-ball change the Mets should make in their home approach, especially at this time of year when the wind blows from every direction at Citi Field, even at one point Thursday in the 4-0 loss to the Nationals, kicking up a sandstorm in front of the Mets’ dugout that engulfed the on-deck circle.
In this place, hitters are attacked by their own ballpark. It’s time, as Joe Maddon is fond of saying, to “Embrace the suck.’’
Lean in, Mets. Citi Field isn’t changing.
There is only one way to fight back, it’s about scoring runs in a different fashion, not in your typical leveraged-swing mentality of today’s game. It was the Nationals who provided the perfect template in the second inning Thursday.
Noah Syndergaard walked two, wild-pitched them to second and third with no outs. After Yan Gomes struck out, the number seven hitter Wilmer Difo, with two runners in scoring position, and the pitcher hitting eighth, went against conventional wisdom and put down a safety squeeze, just to get a run home and a 1-0 lead.
Turns out that would be the only run the Nationals would need, but on this cold windy day, when fly balls were thrown back into hitters’ faces from harsh Flushing Bay winds, it was a genius baseball move by Difo.
The pressure was off the Nationals. They got a second run against Syndergaard in the sixth on a line drive home run off a curveball by talented rookie Victor Robles, the only way a ball could be hit out on this day.
To beat Citi Field, a place where the walls have already been brought in twice, which in a way also hurts the hitters because outfielders now don’t have to play as deep and can snatch balls that should land in front of them, you have to bend current baseball rules and go back to another space and time.
On the road the Mets have been hitting the ball the other way but they need to do more.
Talking to scouts Friday, scouts who have seen hundreds of games at Citi Field, here is some advice to Mets hitters. They need to implement a “create runs’’ approach immediately, starting with Saturday’s matchup against the Nationals with Steven Matz meeting Patrick Corbin in a battle of lefties.