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There's potentially some alarming stuff in this [url=http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/02/26/2008-02-26_mets_want_small_ball_from_jose_reyes.html]article[/url]. I think better pitch recognition and selectivity will come for him. In the meantime, I wouldn't screw with his approach.
]Mets want 'small ball' from Jose Reyes
Tuesday, February 26th 2008, 4:00 AM
PORT ST. LUCIE - Jose Reyes swore he was just trying to hit a line drive up the middle, or even to the opposite field, as instructed. Yet with a flick of his wrists he hit a screaming shot that crashed high off the 20-foot fence in center field, 408 feet from the plate.
The ball was hit so hard, in fact, off Joe Smith in an intrasquad game yesterday, that catcher Robinson Cancel, who was on first base, was nearly thrown out at the plate, while Reyes cruised into third with a triple.
Afterward, Reyes was practically apologizing for the shot, knowing the Mets are trying to resurrect his game after last season's killer slump by urging him to think small and slow his body down, at least in the batter's box.
"I don't know how I hit it that hard," Reyes said sheepishly. "In my mind I'm trying to slow down my body a little bit, hit the ball the other way and use my speed. It was a fastball and I just use my hands."
Such is the dilemma for the Mets this spring: Harnessing Reyes' explosive ability in an attempt to avoid the kind of meltdown that crippled the team last September, is tricky business, indeed.
As hitting coach Howard Johnson put it: "In a perfect world we'd love to have Jose hit ground ball singles every time up, but he can do so much more. So I'm just trying to make sure that he's committed to slowing his approach, that he's not getting too excited and jumping at the ball."
Yes, Reyes is much too dynamic to be a slap hitter. But when he gets in the habit of chasing high fastballs and popping up, he is wasting his extraordinary talent, and the Mets aren't nearly the same ballclub.
Call it the evolution of a potential MVP, and Reyes was making steady progress until he went off the rails last August and September in what was surely the single most significant factor in the Mets' stunning collapse.
So now the equation is complicated by the mental strain that Reyes endured as such an obvious culprit. The Mets were concerned enough about his state of mind that it seemed most everyone in the organization visited him in the Dominican Republic during the offseason to send some love his way.
After all, Reyes went from being serenaded for years with the soccer-style "Ole-Ole" cheers to being booed at Shea as the Mets' division lead slipped away in September.
And even when he returned to the Dominican, Reyes couldn't escape blame.
"It was a tough offseason," he said yesterday. "Everybody talked about, 'What happened to the Mets?' 'What happened to you?' That hurt me and I thought about it a lot in the offseason.
"But now I have put it in the past to make sure that doesn't happen this year."
HoJo and manager Willie Randolph are trying to help by attacking the problems they saw late last season, when Reyes became impatient and jumpy at the plate, the usual symptoms of a slump exacerbated by the pressure of seeing the Mets' lead slip away.
"The urgency to win," is what Randolph called it yesterday. "Jose tried harder, harder, harder - and more was worse for him. But we forget that he's still young, and the reality is that you're going to struggle. People are making adjustments on you, and Jose is such a free swinger that he doesn't make adjustments on the fly.
"We need to slow him down. It's hard because he's in attack mode all the time. Jose's all go-go-go, and you love that, but good pitchers exploit that aggressiveness. ... Jose knows he's a better hitter when he hits the ball down, but when you struggle the way he did last year, you don't think about those things. I think Jose will be fine."
Randolph said his only real concern would be if Reyes gets off to a slow start, and the boos of last September resurface.
"It looked like he pressed more," said Randolph. "I'm sure he was a little taken back by the reaction. He's human, I'm sure it affected him in some way.
"But I don't think he's going to carry that over. I think he learned from it and he can't wait to get back to where he was."
Meanwhile, HoJo is talking to Reyes, reminding him to slow down, telling him to think small.
"We don't want Jose to feel he has to carry the load," said HoJo. "He's handled everything well. I'm watching him like a hawk and everything he's doing is right on track."
So is last year's nightmare over for Reyes? One swing in an intrasquad game is hardly an indication. Indeed, it was just a reminder of what the Mets were missing when it counted most last year, and that slowing down Reyes is a concept easier executed in February than, say, September. |
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