The Mets second baseman/outfielder entered Tuesday’s matchup with the Yankees slashing .221/.278/.344, a far cry from his days as a batting champion, but something has clicked in McNeil, seemingly since he and the team got back from the All-Star break.
In those five games since the break, McNeil is 6-for-15, but more impressively is his four home runs, another of which he launched Tuesday in The Bronx to help the Mets to a 3-2 win.
“Another good day,” McNeil said of his performance after Tuesday’s game. “Any day you go home with a win is a good one.”
After a season of being one of the least popular Mets and seeing his playing time taken by the play of Jose Iglesias, the Mets are surely happy to see their former batting champion get into a groove as they vie for a playoff spot.
But manager Carlos Mendoza continues to say he saw the change in McNeil prior to the break and it was only a matter of time before the results would appear.
“I was saying before the break I was liking the at-bats, he was just unlucky,” Mendoza said of McNeil. “He was driving the baseball with nothing to show for it. He’s a good player.”
It’s been well-documented that these current results are because of a change in approach for the 32-year-old McNeil. He’s no longer “guiding” his bat the way he did in the minors and in the majors, which helped him win his batting title in 2022. However, with those results not there, he’s not taken to hitting the ball as hard as he can.
And the results are there, four home runs in his last five games have helped this Mets team keep their hold on the third and final Wild Card spot, and McNeil himself feels the difference in his at-bats.
“[I feel] more confident. Feel like my swing is right where it needs to be,” he explains. “I was searching early in the year, didn’t really have the spring training to find it. Feel a lot better, feel like myself and nice to have the results.”
McNeil explained that his change in approach was brought about in the first game of the Mets-Pirates series in early July. He was up against fireballer Paul Skenes and took him deep. As McNeil put it, he was just trying to hit it as hard as he could and that stuck with him.
But it would take a couple of more weeks before he and the Mets would see the results. However, that patience to stick with this new approach has paid off for McNeil.
“It’s a results-oriented business. It sucks when you don’t get them even if you’re doing the right things,” McNeil said. “It’s a lot easier to stick with it when you’re hitting the ball hard. It’s a lot tougher when you’re hitting weak groundballs to stay positive, stay with it. It’s a little easier when your swing feels good and the ball comes off the bat well and the results are happening.”
And while it’s too early to proclaim he all the way back, this new more confident McNeil is providing the Mets with the spark they need.
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