PORT ST. LUCIE — This is a new age in baseball, where flexibility counts.
In an effort to stay away from another serious hamstring injury that sidelined him last season, David Wright has changed the way he works out and the early results have been encouraging.
You’ll see a different Wright this season.
“I’m trying to get as flexible as I can, not only strengthen the hamstring but the muscles around it,” Wright told The Post Saturday at Tradition Field. “I never really had to concentrate on things like that before.”
The Mets All-Star third baseman was limited to 112 games last season because of the hamstring injury, the second-lowest number of games he has played since 2005.
“At first I thought it was a cramp, I tried to push through it and ultimately ended up injuring it,” Wright said of the injury. “But I’ve been through it now, and I know what it’s all about.
“I’m doing a lot more concentrated exercises to strengthen my hamstring,” added Wright, who also was sidelined last March by an intercostal strain. “Opposed to just doing the normal offseason workouts, I wanted to concentrate on specific exercises that would help strengthen my hamstrings, a lot more stretching, which I’ve incorporated into my routine.”
The difference in Wright is apparent.
“Before, he lifted heavy weights and he’s probably come in bulkier,”
hitting coach Dave Hudgens said. “But as far as bat speed and what I see on the field, I really like what I see. He looks more agile to me when I see him swing.
“He’s always tinkering with his swing a little bit. I like what he’s doing, he’s trying to stay square to the plate and not over rotate, the same kind of stuff he tried to do the last few years, but I think he’s really feeling what he needs to do, even to get to the ball in a little more, not that we want him to pull, but it almost seems like he is free in there a little bit.
“He can get there a little bit better, so I’m excited with what I see.
Hopefully, he will stay healthy the whole season and that’s why this is key.”
Wright, 31, said he is much more flexible and agile than in years past.
“I hope so,” he said with a smile, “because I worked at it all offseason. I’m doing specific stretches that I really wasn’t able to do too much of before I got hurt and rehabbed.”
Wright would be valuable to any lineup. To the Mets’
offensively-challenged team, he is Mr. Everything, so he reevaluated his routine and came up with this new approach.
“It’s like when I hurt my back a couple of years ago, there are some exercises I incorporated into my routine after that.” said Wright, limited to 102 games in 2011 as a result of a back injury. That’s a lot of missed games over the past three seasons, and Wright figured he had to do something different.
“You have to understand,” Wright said. “There are going to be injuries and you can’t prevent them from happening, but you have to do everything you can do after they happen to make sure they are not a re-occurring thing.”
Being more flexible and agile could pay off in a huge way for Wright and the Mets.