Last year, Lucas Duda hit 27 homeruns. He had a stretch where he hit eight homeruns in seven games. He hit seven homeruns in May, eight homeruns in July, and six homeruns in September/October. The other three months of the year, he hit 10 total. Many people have attributed this streakiness to Duda’s high leg kick. 

Since 2012, various Mets hitting coaches have worked with Duda to work on reducing his leg kick. It appears this Spring, Kevin Long was finally able to get him to reduce his leg kick. Long also got Duda to take less batting practice. All of this is designed to make Duda a healthier and more consistent hitter. So far this year, Duda’s leg kick is much less pronounced. 

For example, this was a homerun he hit in the NL East clincher:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK-RlkIvrmc

Here’s a homerun he hit last night in Philadelphia:

It’s clobbering time! Lucas Duda went full #DudaSmash on his first home run of the season. https://t.co/ysZr0TY7fuhttps://t.co/C1UwEe7kHY

— New York Mets (@Mets) April 19, 2016

Now, after not homering in his first 10 games, he has homered in three straight games. It’s a long season, and you shouldn’t make judgments after 14 games, but Duda is once again hitting homeruns in bunches. It could be this is a small sample size, but it could also be that this is who Duda is. He’s a streaky homerun hitter. 

If it’s as simple as Duda is a streaky homerun hitter that’s fine. Since Duda has become the Mets everyday first baseman, he has a .350 OBP.  That means even when he’s not hitting homeruns, he’s getting on base. Additionally, looking at this lineup, the Mets don’t need Duda to carry them for stretches at a time.  However, when Duda gets in a homerun groove he can carry a team. 

The aforementioned stretch of eight homeruns in seven games coincided with the Mets sweeping the Nationals en route to the Mets taking control of the NL East for good. In that three game sweep of the Nationals, Duda hit three homeruns in nine at bats with five RBI. In that three game series, he hit .626/.667/1.875. When Duda gets hot, he’s scorching red hot. He can carry the Mets, and he can make a difference in the NL East. 

Whether Duda’s streakiness will continue this year even with a reduced leg kick is besides the point. The only thing that matters is that Duda continues to be the good OBP first baseman that can carry the Mets for stretches. So long as he continues this, he will have had another terrific year.