PHOENIX — James McCann lastly contributed offensively in a way that had been eluding him this season.
The slumping catcher smashed a two-run homer within the seventh inning Friday that proved substantial within the Mets’ 6-5 victory over the Diamondbacks in 10 innings.
Torrid begins by Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Eduardo Escobar, amongst others, have helped cowl for McCann, however the .120/.233/.160 slash line he introduced into Friday was unpleasant, even when in comparison with his disappointing first season with the Mets.
“Only a sluggish begin, actually,” McCann mentioned earlier than the sport. “I made just a few changes. I'm nonetheless engaged on just a few changes on prime of a shortened spring coaching, lacking time in spring coaching, so I do really feel there was just a little little bit of a catch up interval.”
McCann missed per week in spring coaching due to again discomfort. It’s an ailment that pressured him to the injured checklist final season, earlier than which he arrived on a four-year contract price $40.6 million.
If McCann had been hitting he seemingly can be taking part in nearly every single day. However his offensive shortcomings have meant further taking part in time for Tomas Nido, who has endured his personal early offensive struggles (he has a .158/.150./.158 slash line).
Behind the plate, the Mets are a lot happier within the outcomes they've obtained from McCann, whose pitch framing ranks within the 89th percentile, in line with baseball savant. McCann had additionally thrown out two of three runners trying to steal in opposition to him.
“That’s one thing I satisfaction my recreation on is separating the offense from the protection as a result of on the finish of the day I understand how I can affect the sport on the defensive aspect of issues is all the time going to be larger than what I can do offensively,” McCann mentioned. “Even in a giant offensive day you're getting 5 at-bats, however defensively I'm on the market for 150 pitches or no matter it is likely to be that day.”
McCann began slowly final season and by no means received on observe, ending with a .232/.294/.349 slash line with 10 homers and 46 RBIs in 121 video games. He says there isn’t a correlation between the 2 seasons.
“Final 12 months was final 12 months,” he mentioned. “There’s ups and downs. There’s just a few issues I've cleaned up from final 12 months that regardless of not having outcomes I'm blissful about. I've route on the plate. Final 12 months I didn’t have constant route.
“I used to be actual rotational coming off balls, I wasn’t staying on balls that I ought to, which led to larger floor ball share and all types of different issues that had been byproducts of that, so regardless of the shortage of outcomes this early within the season my route has been higher and that is likely one of the issues I've tried to scrub up and can simply proceed to hone in on.”
Till he can acquire just a few extra hits McCann will attempt to keep away from his numbers on the scoreboard.
“I discovered very younger in my profession, taking part in with Torii Hunter, the distinction in going 1-for-20 in April and doing it in July,” McCann mentioned. “In April you're feeling horrible, however in July you might have misplaced 10 to fifteen factors off your batting common, so essentially the most difficult half beginning sluggish shouldn't be chasing numbers. It’s trusting the method over 162 video games.”
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