Lucas Duda Is Finally Looking Like An Everyday Player

Duda may lumber around the bases, but it's his other lumber we care most about.  (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

Coming into the season, Lucas Duda found himself in the awkward position of being in a platoon at first base with a player who, like him, batted from the left side of the plate.  Over the first two-plus weeks of the season, Duda and Ike Davis shared starting duties at first base, with Duda penciled into the starting lineup eight times and Davis five.

Davis accomplished little during the first two weeks of the season.  Other than a walk-off grand slam he hit as a pinch-hitter on April 5, Davis managed to go 4-for-23 with no homers and one RBI.  Meanwhile, Duda managed a two-homer game on April 4, driving all four runs scored by the Mets in a one-run victory.  Eleven days later, Duda collected four hits and drove in two runs in another Mets victory.  It was clear that Duda was flourishing as a run producer during the first few weeks of the season, while Davis was not.  Before one-tenth of the season had been completed, Ike Davis was a former Met and Lucas Duda was the team's everyday first baseman.

Duda is now thriving at the position.  In Friday night's game, his two-run opposite-field homer off All-Star pitcher Yu Darvish gave the Mets a two-run lead over the Rangers.  It also gave him the team lead in home runs (13) and RBI (43).  Duda also leads the team in slugging percentage (.472) and OPS (.817).  Since taking over the position for himself in mid-April, Duda has not just become one of the Mets' top offensive threats, he's also become one of the top run-producing first basemen in the entire National League.

Through Friday's games, Duda's 13 homers and 43 RBI rank highly among NL first basemen.  The only players at the position with more home runs and RBI than Duda are Anthony Rizzo (17 HR, 45 RBI), Paul Goldschmidt (15 HR, 55 RBI), Adrian Gonzalez (14 HR, 53 RBI) and Ryan Howard (14 HR, 51 RBI).  Duda's slugging percentage and OPS (.472/.817) are higher than Gonzalez (.447/.769) and Howard (.398/.708) and he compares favorably to young sluggers Rizzo (.493/.880) and Freddie Freeman (.497/.883).  And in case you were wondering, Duda's former platoon partner in New York, Ike Davis, falls outside the league's top ten in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage and OPS for first basemen.

Ike Davis started out well in Pittsburgh, but has fallen off over the past five weeks.  Since June 2, Davis is batting .197 with just four extra-base hits in 27 games (21 starts).  In addition, Davis has put up a pedestrian .276 slugging percentage and .602 OPS since the beginning of June.  Davis has fallen so quickly that he is now part of another first base platoon, this time with the right-handed hitting Gaby Sanchez.  As Davis has struggled in Pittsburgh, Duda has been a bright star in the Mets' lineup.

Since June 13, Duda has batted .313 with seven doubles, five homers and 12 RBI in 18 games (17 starts).  Duda is also the proud owner of a .656 slugging percentage and a whopping 1.045 OPS over that time period.  In addition, Duda has been one of the team's best clutch hitters this season, producing a .609 slugging percentage and 1.036 OPS with runners in scoring position, unlike Davis, whose numbers in those situations (.420/.877) aren't even close to what Duda has produced.

(Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images)

Finally, of Duda's 13 HR this year, five have either tied the game or given the Mets the lead.  Why is five so important?  Because that number represents the total number of home runs hit by Ike Davis all season.  In other words, Davis has as many home runs this season as Duda has clutch homers.

There's a difference between hitting a home run and hitting a key home run.  Since April 21, Ike Davis has hit three homers - all of them have been solo shots and none of them tied the game or gave his team the lead.  Over the same time period, Duda has hit ten home runs, with six of them coming with men on base and three of them tying the game or giving the Mets the lead.

Simply stated, the Mets traded the right player when they dealt Ike Davis to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  In doing so, they finally removed the chains that had shackled Lucas Duda since he arrived at the big league level for the first time in 2010.  This is Duda's fifth season with the Mets, but it appears that this will be the first year he doesn't get sent back to the minor leagues for extra seasoning.  (Playing out of position in the outfield had a lot to do with that "extra minor league seasoning" as well.)  Duda has proven he belongs at the big league level and is quietly establishing himself as one of the top run-producing first basemen in the league.  All Ike Davis has done is become part of yet another platoon in Pittsburgh.

It may have taken him a while, but Lucas Duda looks like he's finally here to stay.  Opposing pitchers in the National League are going to wish he wasn't.
 

The Mets Are Almost Completely Incomplete This Year

Like pepper games and long-term contracts for Marlins players, the complete game for a starting pitcher has virtually disappeared from baseball.  In the golden days of the sport, a starter was expected to go nine innings.  But with teams focusing on pitch counts and employing a number of specialty relievers, complete games are becoming obsolete.

In 1962, Mets' pitchers tossed 43 complete games.  That means the staff threw more complete games than the team had wins.  (The '62 team finished with a 40-120 record.)  From 1967 to 1976, Tom Seaver averaged more than 16 complete games per season.  Since 1976, the only Met with as many as 16 complete games in a season was Dwight Gooden, who had exactly that number in 1985.  And since Doc completed 16 games during his Cy Young Award-winning campaign, no Met has reached double digits in complete games other than ... Dwight Gooden.  The former Doctor K completed 12 games in 1986 and 10 games in 1988.  Meanwhile, the last Mets team to record 10 complete games was the 1996 squad.

The number of complete games for the Mets has been shrinking faster than Ryan Braun's credibility (and testicles).  But this year, the Mets might do something in the complete game department that they've never done before.

The Mets have now played two-thirds of their 2013 schedule.  Through 108 games, the team has only one complete game to its credit.  But the pitcher who tossed that complete game (Dillon Gee) didn't even pitch nine innings to get credit for the CG.  On June 17, Gee pitched eight shutout innings versus the Braves and was allowed to start the ninth with a precarious 1-0 lead.  But after retiring Jason Heyward to start the inning, Gee allowed a single to B.J. Upton and a game-winning homer to Freddie Freeman.  By rule, since the game was not shortened by weather and no other pitcher took the mound for the Mets, Gee was credited with a complete game, even though he only pitched 8⅓ innings.  (Note: Matt Harvey is the only starter to pitch nine innings in a game this year when he faced the Chicago White Sox on May 7.  However, he was not credited with a complete game because the game went into extra innings.  Bobby Parnell was brought in to pitch the tenth in relief of Harvey.)

This is what the end of the Mets' only complete game of 2013 looked like.

Through their first 51 seasons, the Mets have had at least two complete games every year.  The 2004 and 2007 teams are the only squads with exactly two complete games, while the 2003 and 2009 Mets finished their respective seasons with three complete games.  All other staffs in team history had a minimum of five complete games.

Every squad in club annals has had at least two nine-inning complete game victories.  The 2013 staff has only one.  And it wasn't even a nine-inning effort or a victory.  The Mets truly are as close to completely incomplete as they can get.