It was mid-June and manager Terry Collins approached Curtis Granderson. The topic of leading off was discussed.
“It’s weird,” Granderson said. “He never really asked me. He just kind of came up to me and said, ‘You’ve led off a lot, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ The next day, I was leading off.”
In the majors, that’s called volunteering.
But the move has paid off: Granderson in Collins’ description has been “red hot.” Granderson slugged his third leadoff homer of the season to ignite an 18-hit assault that buried the Braves, 8-3, at Citi Field Tuesday night for the 4,000th victory in franchise history.
In 14 games hitting at the top of the order, Granderson is 15-of-54 (.278) with five homers. In his last eight games overall (he led off in six) Granderson is 10-of-31 (.323) with four homers. He said there is “nothing too different in terms of mechanical.”
Collins sees it simply. Better swings. Better pitches. Way better results.
“He’s just putting better swings on the ball. He’s getting better pitches to hit,” Collins said. “He’s laying off some pitches that he swung at earlier in the year. He’s making them come into the strike zone and I think you’re seeing the results of it.”
Granderson insists it’s all a matter of being aggressive. Leading off helps in the sense he is aggressive from the very first pitch, but the lefty-swinging outfielder insists he tries to keep that approach whether hitting first, fourth or 50th.
“The main thing is you just want to stay aggressive so when I’m up there ready to hit from the first pitch of the game, it tends to put me in a situation where if I get my pitch I’m ready to swing at it. If I’m not [getting his pitch] I tend to lay off it,” Granderson said. “It’s trying to keep that 2-0, 3-1 approach no matter what the count happens to be. Nine times out of 10, you tend to have better results in terms of not chasing pitches out of the zone.”
Well, Granderson found a 1-0 fastball in the first inning from Braves starter and loser Julio Teheran and homered for a second straight night as he drilled a shot off the second deck in right, his 27th career leadoff blast. He singled and scored in the second on his way to a 2-for-5 game.
Granderson, the first Met with three leadoff homers in a season since Jose Reyes in 2008, has hit in five different spots in the batting order but since mid-June has pretty much settled into the leadoff spot.
“We really like what he’s done there and right now I’m not going to mess with it too much,” Collins said. “He’s putting good swings on lefties as well as righties and it’s working and I’m just going to leave it alone.”
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sometimes, baseball just isn’t that complicated.