It isn’t so much that Citi Field has gotten into David Wright’s head so much as the cavernous ballpark has forced him to use it.
The decline in home runs has been astonishing, from four straight years of 25-plus during which the Mets’ signature position player hit one in every 20.6 at-bats to this year’s eight, representing one every 56.6 ups with 23 games remaining. And though there’s likely to be some correction going forward, Wright doesn’t appear to expect a return to his previous totals. Neither should management.
“Going into the park we knew it was going to be big, but I don’t think anyone realized just how big it was going to play,” Wright told The Post before going a quiet 0-for-3 in last night’s 6-3 defeat to the Marlins. “And so in order to be successful here I had to alter my approach a bit.
“You no longer can work the count to get ahead and then look for a pitch to drive out of the park. Instead, you look for a pitch you can shoot into the outfield for a base hit. That’s the approach I’ve been taking, and I’ve carried that onto the road.
“You’d have to be a dummy to keep trying to hit home runs when almost all your fly balls wind up reaching the warning track.”
Wright may have survived one to the noggin on Aug. 15, but hardheaded, he isn’t. It is impossible to quantify what the absences of Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado have meant to the third-baseman’s RBI totals, but the fact remains that Wright is batting .325 with runners in scoring position, 82 points higher than last year when he drove home a career-high 124 runs.
“The important thing to me has always been about driving in runs,” said Wright, who has 59 RBIs in 453 at-bats while fifth in the league with a .318 average. “If I can shoot the ball into the gap and get a couple of runs home, that’s my job as I look at it.
“Don’t get me wrong, every once in a while that three-run homer can swing momentum or win a game on one swing, but we have to play to what the park gives us.”
The number of home runs may not be a concern to ei ther Wright or manager Jerry Manuel, but the number of strikeouts is an issue for both men. Wright went into this season averaging one strikeout per 5.3 at bats; he has fanned 116 times this year, one every 3.9.
“When David is on, he’s a right-center power guy and we’ve got 415 [feet] out there, so that’s a pretty good poke,” Manuel said. “But my concern is probably strikeouts.
“I would have to say the lack of power is not a concern in itself because I think if a guy has the kind of stroke like we have consistently seen from David, that will come back, but the high strikeout ratio combined with the lack of power becomes a concern.”
Wright vowed to cut down on the strikeouts, calling this year’s number “unacceptable.” At the same time, he acknowledged that the Mets would have to attack next season differently.
“If this is the way the park is, that’s perfectly fine as long as we do our job,” Wright, who has gone 57 at-bats since his last homer on Aug. 5, said. “We have to bust it out of the box to turn long singles into doubles. We have to go hard from first to third and put pressure on the defense.
“If this is our home ballpark, it’s up to us to take advantage of it.”