I imagine it's looking to me like it did to poor Ike during the first part of the season when he had his slump or maybe like what it looks to our backup catcher Mike Nickeas (who doesn't hit good at all but has awesome hair) ALL the time.
While it's bad for any of us to be in a slump it's kind of worser for me. Because I think we both know that my defense at second base is kind of a "work in progress". That's a fancy way of saying that I'm still not very good out there. Sure, I'm better at second than I ever was when they tried me in the outfield but everyone knows that my best real position is BATTERS BOX. At least it used to be.
And it's not like I'm not trying to unslump. (That's a word, right?)
I've been working a lot with Hudgy - that's Dave Hudgens, our Mets team hitting coach. Hudgy is a good guy and works hard at his job. He's the one who's told us all to take more pitches, get more walks, and try to get the other team's starting pitcher out of the game early. Usually that's a great idea excepting how we often play teams where the relievers they bring in are as good as or better than the starters we've pushed out.
We played those Cincinnatis recently and they brought in a guy named Chapman. The dude throws like a bazillion miles per hour and is a lefty just to make matters even dicier for me and all of us other lefties. Jeesh, I'm thinking, this is what we tried to get the starter out for?
Now, of course, some teams have bullpenners who are far worse than the starters. Like us. We batters have a little saying that we use when the relief guys aren't around. Let's see if I can remember how it goes. Oh, yeah, here it is: "Our bullpen SUCKS."
But I'm getting off track. Back to my slump.
The other day I'm in the film room and Hudgy has it all set up with a screen on the left showing my early season form. I'm getting solid singles and doubles one after the other. And then the other screen, the one on the right, had my recent at bats and it's like one dribbler or weak popup after another. Hudgy asked me to watch it intently for a few minutes and then said, "OK Murph. Do you notice any difference between these screens?" I said, "Sure coach. On this one here I seem to be hitting the ball real hard and on this other one I'm not."
That's when he slapped his forehead hard with his hand. This is a subtle signal to me that I probably gave him the wrong answer. If you ever see Hudgy in the dugout and his forehead is a lot redder than the rest of his face it's probably one of the days that he and I have been working together.
