Ike Davis Struggles Amid the Mets" Bright Start Davis's three-run homer, which came in the eighth inning Wednesday night and flew an estimated 429 feet into the right-field stands, helped the Mets seal an unlikely three-game sweep of the Phillies and reminded onlookers of his immense capacity for power. The blast, which raised Davis's batting average to .179, underscored what the Mets have missed while he has slogged through a season-opening slump. While his team has bolted to an unexpectedly hot start (18-13), Davis, a 25-year-old first baseman, has largely been absent from the fun. "I'm sure he's not happy with the first month-plus of the season, and certainly we have expected more," General Manager Sandy Alderson said after watching Davis and his teammates take batting practice Thursday afternoon. But at the same time, we know it's in there. We've just had to be a little bit patient. Davis, who missed time during spring training this year with what the team believed to be a case of valley fever, finished the preseason encouragingly and was the Mets" cleanup hitter on opening day. Yet it took him 19 at-bats to notch his first hit. Despite a promising four-game stretch in mid-April in which he hit three of his four home runs, the past three weeks have unfurled as a string of frustrations, punctuated with flipped bats and slammed helmets. Davis's 2011 season ended on May 10, when he sustained a serious ankle injury. At the time, he was batting .302 with a .925 on-base plus slugging percentage and seven home runs. This season, Davis's O.P.S. is .548. Davis has maintained that he feels good, physically and mentally, and that his confidence has not wavered. He has been able to smile and joke about his low average, though his ruminations seem to have become more understated of late. "I just wanted to put the bat on the ball," Davis said after Wednesday's game. Hopefully, I do that more often. Manager Terry Collins, who has batted Davis sixth or seventh in 14 of the last 15 games, said it was inevitable that Davis would feel downtrodden at times and experience weariness over the slump. "He comes out of spring training, he's swinging the bat great, he's hitting fourth," Collins said, "and then all of a sudden, before we play 30 games, he's not hitting fourth anymore. So he's got to be upset about the way things have been going. Dave Hudgens, the team's hitting coach, has seen Davis become more serious while he has tackled his recent shortcomings. The slump, Hudgens said, like any other, has been the product of a confluence of factors, each one exacerbating the next. Davis possesses a swing with a considerable amount of preparatory movement and, more than most of his teammates, he relies on rhythm. According to Hudgens, Davis has been allowing his body to rush out ahead of his hands. As his struggles have continued, he has become prone to chasing pitches out of the strike zone. Hudgens said that in recent days, the two had changed the position of Davis's hands, moving them slightly higher, and that he had encouraged Davis to slow down and focus on driving balls to the middle of the field. "I'm confident he'll come out of this," Hudgens said. I'm confident we're close. It's just a matter of getting on a roll. To be sure, Davis has enjoyed the support of his coaches and manager. Early on, addressing Davis's struggles, Collins would repeatedly insist that opposing pitchers were attacking him with particularly fine stuff. Over time, both Davis and his coaches more openly acknowledged his struggles, but "patience" remained the key word for all. Alderson on Thursday used that word as well, and he noted that Davis was still a helpful contributor on defense. Despite that, he made it clear that encouraging signs and optimistic rhetoric were not enough. "I think this is a results-oriented business," Alderson said. Of course the coaches have observations, relevant ones, and we continue to take those into account. But ultimately it needs to get done on the field. Davis's performance Wednesday, which also included a double off the base of the outfield wall, seemed to be a start in that direction. "That tells me he's starting to get centered," Collins said of the home run. Davis, meanwhile, was careful not to get ahead of himself. There have been other positive games - a 3-for-6 night late last month in Colorado, for instance - that did not end up kick-starting things. But he had hope, nevertheless. "I haven't gotten a lot of hits," Davis said. But I feel like there's change happening, and it's for the good.