Howard Johnson, the star third baseman of the World Champion 1986 New York Mets, was appointed batting coach after Minaya fired Rick Down for the team's failure to hit at the All-Star break. Since HoJo has been in the position, the Mets have scored 39 runs in in eight games (so far-- it's only the 8th inning in Los Angeles, and it's a slugfest). They'd scored 29 in the eight before the break, which was itself three better than they'd done at the beginning of June.
He's doing more than the numbers show. The guys look confident at the plate again. The guys who really needed to all hit on Tuesday night (Beltran, Delgado, LoDuca, Valentin, even El Duque, who obviously didn't need to hit, but sure wanted to). Though they didn't end up winning last night, it was the bullpen's fault. That was so rarely the case in the first half that hit's hard to get upset about it, especially when Wright hit a three-run homer to tie it up in the 8th. Even though it didn't produce a win, that has been so rare an occurrence that it merely happening is good news.
(photo from metsgrrl.com's flickr)
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