As Brandon Nimmo stepped to the plate with one out in the eighth inning of a tie game Sunday at Citi Field, his Mets teammates urged him toward one goal. A double.
A double? Even Nimmo wore a quizzical look. Then the light bulb went off. Nimmo already had singled, tripled and homered, his first homer of the season tying the game in the sixth. Why not go for the cycle?
“That would have been awesome, but I was just trying to go up there and stay focused on trying to have a good at-bat,” Nimmo said.
Turns out it was his worst at-bat of his 3-for-5, two-runs-scored day. He struck out looking. No matter. The Mets won, beating Milwaukee, 3-2, on Wilmer Flores’ walk-off homer in the ninth. That is what mattered to Nimmo. Going for a cycle is nice. Going for a championship is better.
Nimmo said he knows his playing time will be sporadic. Manager Mickey Callaway called the Mets starting outfield “one of the best” in all of baseball. So Nimmo, recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas on Friday, wants to make the most of his chances. Whenever they come.
“You have to just try to help out the team however you can,” said Nimmo, who started the season with the Mets, was sent to Las Vegas for a couple days then recalled. “What’s special about this team, if you talk to a lot of the guys around here, it’s the most talented team they’ve played on. So that makes at-bats hard to come by, but it also makes a World Series a very plausible thing. And that’s what we all want.”
So aim high. And you can’t aim higher than a World Series ring.
Callaway acknowledged Nimmo’s simple approach makes him a sound hitter. And that makes sitting the 2011 first-round pick tough.
“His at-bats are always really good, but obviously it’s a challenge to get him out there,” Callaway said, stressing the strength of the Mets starters. “So we have some really good hitters out there already and to try and get at-bats for Nim and [Juan] Lagares is tough.”
Even when Nimmo produces. In a small sample — 15 at-bats this season — he’s hitting .400 with six hits, three of them Sunday. He singled off Milwaukee starter Jhoulys Chacin’s glove in the first inning and eventually scored, tripled in the fourth and homered in the sixth to make it 2-2.
“Our hitting coaches say he has such a simple swing. He’s spread out, doesn’t chase and he’s quick to the ball,” Callaway said. “All those things allow him to be in a good spot at all times.”
But all those things don’t allow him to play every day. Understood, Nimmo said.
“I want to be part of a World Series team and if that means I need to come off the bench, put up a good at-bat for a pinch hit or whatever, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Nimmo said. “If they need me to start because someone is feeling a little rough then that’s what I’m going to do, and I’m going to give it the best effort I can because I want to see this team win in the World Series at the end of the year.”