Correa cites playing hurt for bad swing
The problems plaguing Carlos Correa at the plate are plentiful. His hands are out of whack. Pitch recognition is suffering. The worst slump of Correa’s three-year career continues to spiral, leaving the perpetually positive shortstop seeking answers.
“Going out there is no fun when you’re not playing the way you expected to be playing,” Correa said Friday. “But at the same time, I’m putting in the work and putting in the time for me to fix this and I can’t get frustrated or quit. I just have to keep grinding and try to figure it out.”
Correa has suffered two injuries this season. An oblique issue in June forced him to miss four games. Lower back soreness sent him to the disabled list later that month. He was activated Aug. 10.
Correa acknowledged before Friday night’s series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks that his swing is “not the same.” He assigned blame to the oblique — not the back — and “playing hurt” with it early in June.
“The way my hands are attacking the baseball (is off ),” Correa said. “I’m a little around the baseball. It’s been hard to fix it as of now, some of the habits I acquired when I was playing hurt and trying to compensate so my oblique wouldn’t hurt. I was going around the baseball instead of staying inside because that was hurting me.
“Those bad habits have been really hard to break.”
Entering Friday’s game at Minute Maid Park, Correa possessed a 22.3 percent strikeout rate since returning from the disabled list. He has just three extra-base hits and a .459 OPS. The shortstop’s batting average has dropped to .239.
As a result, he has been moved to the fifth spot in manager A.J. Hinch’s batting order in the last week.
“They can be fixed, you know, overnight,” Correa said of his swing flaws. “It’s just a matter of a couple balls dropping here and there and gaining confidence back and go from there.”
Asked to assess Correa’s swing since his return, Hinch found fault with the shortstop’s rhythm and timing.
The “number one priority” for Correa, according to Hinch, is to “see the ball and recognize pitches.”
“If he’s not doing that, then it’s going to be really hard to hit, regardless of your hitting mechanics or rhythm and timing,” Hinch said.
“Once you identify that you are looking at pitches, then you can kind of move to the mechanics.”
Added Hinch: “When I say he’s one click away, I mean it. And when it happens — and it’s going to happen — he’s right back in the middle of everything that we’re doing right.”
Peacock is cleared to return to bullpen
On Friday the Astros cleared
Brad Peacock to return to baseball activities after having to miss two games because of hand, foot and mouth disease.
The righthander had not thrown a baseball in four days. He was scheduled to play catch, throw a bullpen and see how his arm felt.
Although he indicated he could pitch against the Diamondbacks, manager A.J.
Hinch was not so certain. Peacock contracted the disease from his infant son, who had suffered a fever earlier this month, which prompted an urgent care visit.
Peacock’s condition worsened during last weekend’s series in Boston.
“I just got a bunch of little blisters on my hand, feet and face,” he said. “It wasn’t too fun, but I feel good now.”
During his time off the field, Peacock quarantined himself in a room. He played video games to pass the hours.
“It was weird, man,” Peacock said. “I’d never even heard if this until this year.”
Peacock was the third known case of hand, foot and mouth disease in Major League Baseball this season. Mets pitcher Noah
Syndergaard and Yankees starter J.A. Happ each went to the disabled list with the illness in August.
Hinch would not venture a guess as to when he might pitch Peacock, who has been one of the manager’s most dependable multi-inning and high-leverage relievers.
Peacock has a 2.98 ERA and 90 strikeouts in 601⁄3 innings.
“I haven’t seen him, and I’m not going to get within 10 feet of him,” Hinch joked. “I’ll put him in (the game) from the dugout.”
Smith remembers the Wright stuff
After a game in 2008, rookie Mets reliever Joe Smith rode home from Shea Stadium with
David Wright. Though separated in age by one year, the two men rode the New York streets with dissimilar career arcs.
Wright played 160 games and drove in 124 runs. His OPS was .924, the last of four straight seasons he’d boast at least a .900 clip. For the third consecutive year, he was elected an All-Star. In a clubhouse containing Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran,
Wright was the captain. Smith was in his first full major league season after a 54-game taste one year earlier. The sidearmer was throwing the ball “OK,” he recalls now. Closer Billy Wagner toiled on the disabled list.
Silence on the ride was broken.
“He’s like ‘Hey man, you need to step up. We need you, let’s go. I don’t care if you’re a secondyear guy or not,’” Smith said Friday. “Just hearing that from him was like ‘Hey, you’re in the big leagues. We need you to win, get going. He did everything the right way.”
Smith spent his first two major league seasons with Wright, the seven-time All-Star who ascended to hallowed status as the Mets’ captain. Wright announced Thursday he would retire after the season, unable to overcome a multitude of injuries which derailed a career on a Hall of Fame pace.
“He helped me a ton,” said Smith, now in his 12th major league season. “Just figuring out stuff on the field. If I needed a little extra kick, like ‘Hey, let’s get going, we need to get it going.’ Things like that. He was really good about doing things the right way.”
Upon his first major league call-up in 2007, Smith entered an established clubhouse. Martinez, Beltran, Delgado, Paul Lo
Duca and Fernando Tatis were among the veterans.
Social media was nonexistent, placing Smith in a perpetual state of wonder while trying to fit in among a group of players he knew only for their prestige.
Springer sustains shoulder injury
Center fielder George Springer is day-to-day with a shoulder injury, which he sustained on a diving attempt in the eighth inning of Friday’s 4-2 loss to the Diamondbacks.
A.J. Pollock sent a shallow fly to center. Springer dove and got a glove on the ball, but he could not snare it. In the process, Springer, “banged his shoulder, like he’s done before,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said.
Hinch removed Springer after the inning.
“We reacted pretty aggressively and took him out of the game,” Hinch said. “We weren’t going to take any chances.”
Hinch added that Springer could return to the lineup Saturday evening against the Diamondbacks.