SEATTLE — To Brandon Nimmo, what’s gone wrong for him personally over the past few weeks and for the Mets as a team these last two nights was crystallized in one sixth-inning at-bat Saturday night.
Francisco Lindor had singled with two outs, and this constituted as large a rally as New York would achieve all night in what became a second consecutive shutout loss to the Mariners. Nimmo got ahead of Logan Gilbert in the count 2-1, and Gilbert proceeded to make just about his only mistake all evening: a 97 mph fastball right down the middle.
And Nimmo popped it up to center field.
“If I hit the home run on the mistake he made, it’s a two-run home run and we’re in a totally different ballgame,” Nimmo said after the 4-0 loss. “Instead I pop it up and he’s out of the inning.”
Through two nights in Seattle, the Mets are still waiting for their first run. Bryce Miller and three relievers shut them out Friday, Gilbert and two relievers did it Saturday. There was an inevitability to the proceedings Saturday, after the Mariners turned a ridiculous double play in the top of the first and scored three quick runs in the bottom of it.
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Nimmo, in particular, has felt the weight of the club’s recent offensive struggles. He’s in his worst rut of the season, a prolonged stretch since the All-Star break in which he hasn’t hit the ball hard. In the second half, he’s down to a .158 batting average and .197 slugging percentage.
Asked how he’s feeling, the usually cheerful outfielder didn’t bother with optimism.
“Terrible,” he said. “I expect more of myself, and I’m working at it every day. It’s just not good enough. I’m one of the leaders on this team and I’m supposed to come through and do better. And I’m not. I’m going to do everything in my power to do better and finish strong.”
For Nimmo, it comes down to pouncing on pitches like the one from Gilbert in Saturday’s sixth.
“It’s capitalizing on pitches that you get. That’s the name of the game,” he said. “It’s the difference between doing really well and not at this level. That’s pretty much it.”
The All-Star break has become a problem for Nimmo. In each of the last three seasons, he’s slumped immediately after the layoff.
“Obviously I’m not doing that the right way,” he said. “I’ve got to find a different routine, a different something out of the break.”
Nimmo has started to feel a little bit better as the second half has progressed; he thinks he’s making the right decisions on pitches and is still taking his walks. But he’s distinguishing this slump from his earlier one in April when he was hitting the ball harder than he is now.
“The exit velo has gone down, more groundballs, so it’s all a recipe for not doing very well,” he said. “We do know I need to get the ball in the air more, hit the ball harder. The answers are easy to find but harder to fix.
“It’s just trying to find the right cues and the right looks in order to be successful on those pitches.”
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While Nimmo has broken out of slumps before with one good swing where everything clicks, he doesn’t expect that this time around.
“I hope we do find that. But usually, it’s stacking good at-bats,” he said, calling his recent play a case of one step forward and two steps back. “This usually doesn’t happen in one day. It happens over the course of a few days to a week.”
These first two games in Seattle have emphasized how difficult it can be for an offense against elite pitching. If the Mets want to get to October, if they want to do something when they’re there, they’ll need to seize upon the rare mistakes they haven’t against the Mariners.
“Playoff baseball,” Nimmo said, “it comes down to one or two pitches throughout a game and which team capitalizes on those.”
(Photo of Brandon Nimmo, right and Jesse Winker: David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
Tim Britton is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the New York Mets. He has covered Major League Baseball since 2009 and the Mets since 2018. Prior to joining The Athletic, he spent seven seasons on the Red Sox beat for the Providence Journal. He has also contributed to Baseball Prospectus, NBC Sports Boston, MLB.com and Yahoo Sports. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBritton
