So after three trips to the New York Mets' new digs in Flushing (by the way, is there a more appropriate name for a town that is home to a team that keeps watching their seasons go down the drain?), I keep hearing about how Citi Field is a pitcher's park.

During the Phils second visit to Citi in June, I remember the talk was about how David Wright hadn't homered in X amount of games and how they need to move the fences in and yada, yada, yada.... snore.... yada.

Then a funny thing happened. The Phillies cruised their way to wins on enemy territory by disproving the widely-held theory that Citi Field was too darn big.

Chew on this: the Phils middle-the-order quartet of Ryan Howard (4), Chase Utley (4), Raul Ibanez (2) and Jayson Werth (2) have combined for more home runs at Citi Field (12) than any single Mets player has hit in every ballpark all season.


Jeff Francoeur leads the Mets with 11 home runs (and he hit five of them while playing for Atlanta). Gary Sheffield has a whopping 10 home runs and perennial All-Star and national media darling David Wright, who had played in all but three games before his recent head injury, has eight home runs (five at home).

So the guess here, given that the Phillies had no problems hitting home runs at Shea Stadium's replacement, is it's the players - not the ballpark - that is at the root of the Mets' season-long power drought.

Blame the player, not the park.