Brandon Nimmo turns it around with walk-off double
New York Mets' Brandon Nimmo reacts after his walk-off double scored Eduardo Escobar for a 4-3 win against the New York Yankees at Citi Field on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
In the moments before Brandon Nimmo’s walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th inning, lifting the Mets to a 4-3 win over the Yankees and a Subway Series split Wednesday night, he told his teammates in the dugout: Man, he was glad it was about to be him.
His desire for redemption stemmed not from making a key out on the bases earlier in the game — more on that later — but from a fielding flub the day before. He dropped an eminently catchable fly ball, setting up what became the Yankees’ winning run, and felt terrible about it.
But with a chance to make good, he capitalized. He turned Nick Ramirez’s sinker into a tall fly ball that went off the base of the rightfield wall.
Eduardo Escobar, who was the automatic runner on second base to open the extra frame, scored.
“Baseball is funny like that,” Nimmo said. “You can’t get down on yourself and you have to come back the next day . . . I was able to come through for the boys and I was really happy about that, because last night I felt like I let them down.”
Said Jeff McNeil: “He came in today fresh and I know he really wanted to get that last hit and help the team win, which he did.”
His dramatics erased the mistakes — mental and physical — of other Mets, too. The Yankees had scored two runs on no hits in the seventh inning, rallying via a pair of Mets throwing errors and Brooks Raley’s lack of awareness on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s straight steal of home.
“Everything is better,” Nimmo said, “when we win.”
Nimmo wound up in the middle of a wild bottom of the seventh, too. After Starling Marte drove in the tying run with a single to left, Nimmo — taking off from first base — was most of the way to third when he realized the runner in front of him, Mark Vientos, had been held up by third-base coach Joey Cora. He tried to hustle back to second but was thrown out, ending the inning.
This time, though, he didn’t beat himself up. He was confident in his decision-making.
“It was aggressive and in that situation, I like it,” Nimmo said. “Other things happened in front that didn’t allow that.”
Vientos, a rookie who is not that fast in addition to not being a very good baserunner, didn’t get a large enough secondary lead on the play. That meant that by the time he approached third, Cora told him to stop.
Nimmo expected to go from first to third to convince third baseman Josh Donaldson to cut off the throw and chase him. He would sacrifice himself for the sake of Vientos scoring the go-ahead run.
“I was planning on being out,” Nimmo said.
It didn’t work out how he wanted, but then again, so little has for the Mets this year. They won anyway — thank to Nimmo.
“Getting a chance to watch him play every day is something I really enjoy,” manager Buck Showalter said. “Regardless of what the results are, we’re lucky to have him.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
