February 26, 2008
Fixing Reyes
The Mets are trying to get Jose Reyes out of the habits he picked up at the end of last season. That leads to this being a bad thing:
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.
I've seen something similar happen to Soriano. In his last year with the Yankees he hit a couple of home runs on low, outside pitches, then chased that pitch for the rest of the year.
Posted by David Pinto at
07:43 AM
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I've seen Reyes do the same thing back when he was in low A ball with the Capital City Bombers. You could tell even back then that he was a cut above most of the other players.