The Advantage of Citi Field

Several weeks ago the Philadelphia Phillies and manager Charlie Manuel were under serious scrutiny for sign stealing after a video-camera was spotted in the Phillies bullpen aimed toward the field. This being the second time in as many years that his team was accused of cheating, the skipper tried to deflect the accusations by pointing out that the New York Mets were sporting the best home record in the National League while at the same time having one of the worst road records and that they had to be cheating.

Not much has changed since then as the Mets lead the Majors with 22 home wins including 18 of the last 22 and currently boast 8 consecutive wins at home after sweeping the Florida Marlins this past weekend. Unfortunately the Amazin’s are still only 8-18 on the road and just can’t seem to figure it out. This fact certainly lends credence to Manuel’s soundbyte but I believe the answer is much simpler. The vast dimensions of Citi Field are finally paying dividends.

Last season many Mets fans, myself included, bemoaned the cavernous dimensions of Citi Field that seemed to take away homeruns left and right (the fact that Daniel Murphy lead the team with a whopping 12 HRs last year should say enough) and really hurt the team offensively. This year the Mets’ homerun totals have certainly improved but what has been more important to the team’s success has been the adaptation of the pitchers to their surroundings.

Mets’ starters have a combined home ERA that is nearly two full runs lower than their combined road ERA. It is difficult to underestimate how effective a pitcher can be when they simply work quickly and throw strikes with such a large park behind them, this is evident in the surprising success of fill-in-turned-full-time starters R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi who haven’t had to dance around hitters because they don’t have ideal stuff (as a comparison see Oliver Perez, nuff said).

Mix effective pitching with some hot hitting (3B David Wright is 13-25 in his last 7 games while RF Jeff Francoeur is 18-36 during his current 10-game hit streak after a mighty 6-week slump) and the emergence of SP Mike Pelfrey as one of the premier starters in the game (8-1, 2.39 ERA, 1.24 WHIP entering Tuesday) as a compliment to 2-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana and the Mets have a recipe to stay relevant in the playoff race until the end. If the team can figure out how to get it done on the road like they are at home so far this year it could be an exciting summer. For now though it is one game at a time as they host a tough San Diego Padres team this week that boasts an NL West leading 34-23 record.