ATLANTA – Sometimes one plus one doesn’t equal two. Take the case of Edgardo Alfonzo.
The Mets third baseman has one home run this season. On Monday, he had an X-ray taken on the left hand that he says has been injured since the second game of the season.
It’s natural to make a correlation where there isn’t one, to give a reason for Alfonzo’s struggles. But the X-ray was negative and Alfonzo said he’s fine, suffering only from a bruise on the soft tissue near his pinkie.
So if his home-run drought is not due to an injury, the problem becomes more complicated.
After sitting out Tuesday’s rained out game, Alfonzo was back in the lineup last night. He went into the game hitting .312, the best average on the team of anyone with 125 at-bats. Nobody else under that criteria is within 50 points of him. Only Timo Perez’s .324 mark is better.
The only other reason could be that Alfonzo is continuing to search for a swing that was lost last season, when a back problem completely changed the way he swung. In 1999 and 2000, Alfonzo averaged 26 homers. He slumped to 17 last year, which looks like an unreachable mark for the 2002 season at this point.
“He got into some bad habits,” hitting coach Dave Engle said. “He was doing a swing that protected his lower back and got away from what he was doing in ’99 and 2000.
“He’s hitting the ball sharply, but he hasn’t been utilizing his body the most efficient way to drive it the furthest it can go. He’s using the whole field and he’s hitting the ball hard.
“It’s just a matter of the finish and the hips and coming off the back foot. Trying to get those three things in synch.”
Engle explained that in ’99 and 2000, Alfonzo lifted his back foot up at the end of his finish and was able to drive the ball to right-center because his hips, legs and arms were in total rhythm.
“He has been back in that mode of trying to get that timing of his body working to its maximum efficiency,” Engle said.
Alfonzo’s lack of power does not make him unique on this team. Mo Vaughn has four homers after missing the entire 2001 season. Roberto Alomar, who hit 20 last season with Cleveland, has four.
Only Mike Piazza (10 homers) and Jeromy Burnitz (eight HRs) are even close to their normal pace, and the dearth of dingers has taken its toll this season.
“I think there’s a lot of asterisks in the first two months with our offense right now,” Engle said. “Everybody is working to overcome this thing.
“It’s a contagious thing. We have not hit as a group. We’ve been taking better swings as a group. We need guys to have three or four days of hits and good at-bats, and it just snowballs. The offense is going to take off.
“And it’s overdue, and no one is more aware of that than myself.”
While the Mets are tied for 14th in the National League in homers, it hasn’t been a problem in the early going. That’s because the pitching staff had done a decent job keeping the ball in the ballpark. But the Mets have 43 homers and their opponents now have 42. The offense needs to pick up the pace, as both Engle and Alfonzo know.
“For about 10 days now as a group – especially the big boys — we have had much-better at-bats,” Engle said. “We’re seeing the ball better and taking our best swings.
“We’ve been more aggressive and we’re taking more aggressive swings.”
