☀️ Good Morning:
If this is how things are going to go… ok!
Less than 24 hours after suffering their first real gut punch of the season, the Mets responded by putting a football total on the scoreboard.
Any worries about Brandon Nimmo, or hitting with runners in scoring position, or managing the bullpen were completely cast aside.
The Mets looked like the powerhouse their record suggests they might be, pummeling the Nationals 19–5 to become the first team in baseball to reach 20 wins.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
Live long enough and you learn clichés are true.
While we’ve used this headline before, I can’t think of one more appropriate for what we witnessed on Monday.
Brandon Nimmo had turned into the Topic du jour among Mets fans after starting the year with an anemic .192 average and .337 slugging percentage. The affable outfielder is perhaps best known for taking pitches and sprinting to first base after a walk, something we have rarely seen this season. His 6.2% walk rate is nearly half his career average.
Worse yet, Nimmo entered play on Monday only 6-for-37 with runners in scoring position. It’s why he only had 12 RBIs on the season.
Well, those numbers changed in a hurry.
As fate would have it, Nimmo tied a franchise record with NINE, count ‘em, NINE RBIs on Monday. He became the first player in baseball to drive in at least nine runs since Shohei Ohtani did it in his MVP-defining game last September. And the first player to do so in a three-inning span since Sammy Sosa in 2002 (h/t Elias Sports).
🔻 WHAT GIVES? It turns out it’s early in the count when you get a hint of how Nimmo’s at bats are going to go. He is a completely different hitter when he gets ahead 1–0, versus falls behind 0–1, as the stats heading into yesterday’s game reveal.
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