Mets dealing with RISP-y business

During a baserunning discussion Tuesday afternoon in which, among other things, Jerry Manuel lamented that players these days don't spend enough time learning proper fundamentals, Manuel made an interesting point: though the Mets are first in the National League with a .286 average with runners in scoring position, they rank nowhere near the top of the league when it comes to actually scoring those runs. In fact, the Mets have knocked in 473 runs all season with men in scoring position -- roughly 40 fewer than the Dodgers, who are hitting merely .262 in such situations.

The numbers can be confusing, but here's Manuel's explanation:

"If you have a lot of singles hitters and the outfielders play in, if you have infield hits, those count as hits with runners in scoring position," he said. "We get them from second to third. It's between third and home that we don't make the right decisions."

Translation: The Mets don't hit the ball particularly deep (their slugging percentage is 14th in the league with RISP), and they don't hit home runs with men on base (28th in the Majors). All of which renders that high batting average pretty insignificant.

--Anthony DiComo