One Reason to Watch Them Play Out the String
September 2nd, 2011 by slangon

So, September is upon us. This weekend is Labor Day already. We all know what that means. Even though there’s officially still 19 days left of the summer, it’s over. This is the last hoorah. For the Mets, that means 27 games left to play, and considering that they’re 22 games behind in the N.L. East and 14.5 games behind in the Wild Card standings, this is yet another meaningless September.

I for one happen to be one of those fans that doesn’t quite care. I’ll keep watching regardless. Don’t get me wrong. If I had my druthers, I’d be watching this last month of baseball hoping to secure a play-off spot, but I’m too addicted to the sport to not watch just because my team is out of it. Thankfully though, there’s a very interesting reason to keep watching the Mets this year.

As you may or may not know, this is Jose Reyes’ walk year, and at least for the first half, he was absolutely killing it. It was ridiculous how good he was. After every multiple hit game, there was more and more serious talk about an MVP caliber season. It also seemed like every day he was doing something that hadn’t been done in the Majors since Ty Cobb did it back in 1906. It was crazy and incredibly enjoyable to watch. Of course, he’s cooled down quite a bit after not one, but two stints on the DL, but his .335 average is still good for the N.L. lead. He has been picking it up a little bit lately, hitting .318 in his 6 games. I guess the bad thing about having such a high batting average is that hitting .318 actually brings it down a little. Hopefully he can get hot again.

Surprisingly, Jose is not the only Met in the Top 5 for average.

Murph still sits at the number 5 spot with a .320 average, despite missing the remainder of the season with a bum knee. It’s a real shame, too. He had started the season pretty lousy, with his average sitting around .250 or so at the end of May. He really turned it up in June and July though, hitting .330 and .360 in those months respectively.  It would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if he didn’t get hurt.

Matt Kemp is sitting in the number 4 spot, just ahead of Murph with a .321 mark. I don’t know if he has it in him to make a run at the batting title, but you really have to give it to him as far as his chances at MVP. Aside from being #4 in average, he’s #2 in homers, #3 in runs batted in, #2 in slugging percentage and #3 in OPS. I guess the biggest thing hurting his chances are the rest of the Dodgers.

The reigning National League MVP is sitting just ahead of Kemp with a .323 average. He’s been turning it up a little bit too recently, finishing out August with a .347 batting average for the month. If he keeps that up, it could be interesting come the last week of the season. Right now, I sort of feel like his .323 average is still far enough away from the lead that unless something crazy happened, I don’t think he could do it.

This guy, however, is probably Jose’s biggest threat. His season average is just a mere 4 points behind Reyes at 331. What’s worse is that he’s incredibly hot right now, finishing up an August where he hit .369 for the month. As much as I really want Jose to take the title and part of me wants to see Braun tank for the rest of the season, I actually think it would be much more to see him keep it up and have Reyes get hot too. I mean, as a Mets fan, it’s not like I got anything else going on.

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