1 Mets player primed for a better second half

Who can’t be obsessed with the results generated from the New York Mets offense in the first half of the 2022 season? They’ve been one of the best in all of baseball in scoring runs and have played great baseball throughout. And if you noticed the past couple of weeks, the Mets offense began to take some encouraging strides forward following a funk that lasted for a couple of weeks and returned to playing at a high level. 

One Mets starting position player in general is looking at a fresh start in the second half as a way to return to what he is capable of, and that is Eduardo Escobar. 

Mets: Eduardo Escobar’s bat is a fuse waiting to explode when the second half of the season begins. 

Eduardo Escobar had the lowest OPS+ of any of the non-catcher starters in the Mets lineup in the first half, but that is soon about to change, because his game is trending in the right direction.  

If you watched Eduardo Escobar’s at-bats closely, especially on the last road trip leading into the break, you have to be encouraged with what he can do in the second half. Are the strikeouts still an issue? Yes. However, he’s hit a lot of bullets and long home runs in a matter of two weeks.

He has a hard-hit rate of 42.6 percent since July 1, good for the 63rd percentile among hitters with 40 plate appearances since then, and a 13.0 percent barrel rate (79th percentile). That’s how encouraged Mets fans should be about Escobar busting out in the second half. At some point, his success will translate to a better slash line than the .224/.279/.397 he produced in the first half. 

Escobar has consistently been an above average hitter across the majors the past seven years, and there is a reason he drove in 118 runs in 2019, and why he’s had four seasons of 20 or more home runs. We saw his leadership skills and ability to command a room in spring training, in which the young prospects left with a strong first impression of him. We know he is better than the hitter that struck out at an alarming rate. It is just a matter of time to when it translates into success at the plate.