Weekend Game Recap from Arizona

Moises Alou did indeed return on Friday night in the desert. He looked good. They originally gave him a hit in his first at bat but later changed it to an error on Orlando Hudson. I thought it was a cheap hit at the time. Hudson clearly could have fielded the ball but just muffed it. He hit the ball hard all weekend and final got his first hit on Sunday. He looked good in left field and seems relatively healthy right now. I really think he'll be a boon to the Mets lineup. They need something.

Wright's fighting his way out of whatever funk he was in. He had the homer Friday and another on Sunday. Reyes looked REALLY good on Friday. And Ryan Church continues to impress me. I don't know what the general feeling in Mets Nation is about Church, but I think he's been a really good pick up. He's providing more right now than Milledge is in Washington. He's hitting lefties and righties. He strikes out a bit, but not TOO much.

I had an argument at the game Sunday with one of my buddies about Mark Reynolds. Its an argument as old as baseball. I like to think of it as the Dave Kingman argument. Here you have a power hitter (Reynolds) who's struck out 43 times in 106 at bats (as of Sunday's game) and leads the team in RBI. My buddies argument: "You want this guy on your team because he hits for power and drives guys in. So what if he strikes out for every out. As long as he's driving guys in, who cares how they get him out." My argument (the correct side of the argument, BTW): "A guy that strikes out a lot (Kingman, Bobby Bonds, PrestonWilson, Reynolds) won't help your team in intangible situations. You can't move a runner to third with a strikeout. You can't be a truly tough out if the pitcher knows he can get you on strikes (with exceptions - Adam Dunn)." There's only so much that you can do when you strike out. If you make more productive outs, then you're furthering the team without producing numbers. The grounder behind the runner, the fly ball that a guy advances on, can't happen if you strike out. Also, how many times can you force an error on a strikeout? If you hit it hard at the second baseman and he boots it (as Alou did in my previous comments) then your team has a chance to score on the error.

It seems VERY obvious to me that you would rather have a guy that strikes out less and hits as hard but with situations in mind (David Wright) than a guy that might hit 5 to 10 more homers and strike out 200 times (Reynolds).

Mark Reynolds 43 K's in 106 AB's projects to 215 strikeouts in 500 AB's. That would be the record plus 30. He's got the potential to do it. By comparison (and its not a fair comparison because one of these guys was a first ballot hall of famer, but it illustrates the difference nicely), Joe DiMaggio struck out 369 times in his CAREER. Never as many as 40 times in a season and Reynolds surpassed that in a month. He's got 173 K's in 480 AB's in his career. Yikes!!