Bats: Derek Jeter, Mets Killer

If any player deserved to be excited by the arrival of the Subway Series, Derek Jeter was a likely candidate. The slumping Jeter went into Friday’s game with the highest career batting average, .381, of any player against the Mets with a minimum of 150 plate appearances.

He also took a 25-game hitting streak against the Mets dating back to 2003 (he was batting .481 during that streak). But Jeter, who got off to a fast start to the season, has had trouble finding hits against other teams lately.

He was batting .404 on May 4, but a little over a month later his average was down to .319 after he went 2 for 20 in the previous five games heading into Friday, lopping 21 points off his average in less than a week.

“It’s pretty much the same every year,” he said before the game. “You go through streaks where you feel good, and you go through streaks where you feel bad. Hopefully, when you’re feeling bad you can get hits here or there, which hasn’t been the case the last few days.”

Prior to that Jeter had a sequence in which he had a hit in 17 of the previous 19 games. But only five of those were multi-hit games for Jeter, and he was hitting .280 in that stretch.

“It’s not the first time I’ve gone a few weeks without feeling good,” he said. “Sometimes all it takes is one at-bat, whether you get a hit or don’t get a hit, you feel comfortable, and hopefully it starts today.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=726560272ec497422c923f1f19cbebac