MLB

Struggling Granderson moved out of cleanup spot

The Mets got Curtis Granderson expressly to be their cleanup hitter. But for the moment, the struggling outfielder is out of the cleanup role, moved to No. 2 in the order Sunday to try to break him out of his malaise.

“I’m just looking at differences of when it’s going good to where I am now, and see if anything looks different. It can be a number of different things,’’ Granderson told the Post. “It’s such a minute thing. One thing changes just as tick, everything can be right: That’s what makes it difficult to try and find it.

“(Terry Collins) talked to me (Saturday) before the game and said how would you feel about going to No. 2. I said you’re the manager, just let me know where you want me to go. I’ve been all over the lineup.’’

Granderson came into Sanday’s game against Atlanta hitting .140 with 19 strikerouts, and booed consistently at home where he was batting just .121.
“I’ve been thinking about doing it for a few days and on the off day we had a chance to look at his history. He’s got great numbers hitting second no matter where he’s played so we said maybe that’s the spot for him,’’ said Collins. “At the rate (Eric Young Jr.) is getting on he’s going to get some fastballs to hit. I talked to Grandy (Saturday) about it and he was fine. He likes hitting second.’’’

After handing Granderson a four-year, $60 million deal this past offseason, the Mets admittedly expected him to hit behind David Wright and provide protection/

“That’s why we got him; we got him to produce runs,’’ Collins acknowledged. But they picked Daniel Murphy to hit cleanup because they didn’t want to put that pressure on Lucas Duda. The Mets traded away Ike Davis on Friday to hand Duda the first base job, but apparently the cleanup role was too much to handle.

“Lucas right now, with what’s happened the last week, has got enough on his plate. I didn’t want to stir up the pot by throwing him in the No. 4 hole right away. He may end up there eventually, but I just thought we’ll leave Daniel there.

“It’s huge (pressure). That’s exactly why I’m not ready to move Lucas there right now. We just named him the first baseman, there was a lot of hoopla about it, we trade Ike and now he’s got to produce and all of a sudden slam him in the 4 hole. I think I’ll just see how this goes.’’