Where did the New York Mets really win that game against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night?
It wasn’t with any pitch thrown by Jonathon Niese or the two-out hit that Eric Campbell got off Mike Dunn (the second time Campbell has beaten Dunn with an eighth-inning hit the last two seasons, by the way).
The difference-making moment for the Mets was when Lucas Duda took a 1-2 breaking ball off the plate for ball two.
There was a time when Duda would have swung at that pitch.
In fact, that time was a few weeks ago when Duda was in a massive slump.
In June and July, Duda saw 58 breaking balls out of the strike zone from left-handed pitchers. He swung at 26 of them (45 percent).
In the last four days, Duda has seen seven such pitches. He swung at one of them. It’s an incredibly small sample, but it’s one that weighed in the Mets’ favor.
The payoff on Tuesday was that Duda’s take bought him another pitch in the at-bat. Dunn left a slider in the strike zone and Duda crushed this one to the wall for a single. He’d score the go-ahead run on Campbell’s hit.
Duda is now hitting .307 against left-handed pitching, sixth-best among left-handed hitters this season. He hit .180 against lefties in 2014.
