Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

With Brandon Nimmo sidelined due to a finger injury over the past few games, the New York Mets have needed their outfield depth to step things up. In his absence, veteran Kevin Pillar has surprisingly been a bit of a spark-plug for the Mets offense.

Pillar was right in the thick of things in the Mets’ 8-7 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. On the night he picked up three hits, including a rally-starting solo home run, as part of a six-run top of the eighth.

Pillar followed that up with another impressive performance at the plate in Monday night’s series opening 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. In his first at-bat, Pillar showcased his baseball I.Q. with some heads-up baserunning. After Pete Alonso doubled, Pillar lined a single up the middle, and then took second after the Cardinals missed the cutoff man.

He followed that up by cracking a two-run shot to deep center field in his next at-bat, giving the Mets a lead at the time.

Overall in his past two starts, Pillar has gone 5-for-9 with a pair of home runs and three runs batted in. As noted by MMO’s own Mathew Brownstein, this was the first time Pillar homered in back-to-back games since August of 2019.

Mets fans questioned the decision to start Pillar over Albert Almora Jr on Sunday night, but Mets manager Luis Rojas said pregame that the team’s metrics indicated Pillar had been doing everything right at the plate but hitting into some tough luck.

Following Monday night’s loss, Pillar told reporters he thinks the strange start to the beginning of the season hurt him, like many of his teammates results early on, and the more opportunities he receives the more successful he will be.

“The more times I get the chance to go out there and fine-tune my skills and my approach, I think it’s definitely going to benefit when Nimms comes back and he returns to playing out there, and when I get opportunities to come off the bench and help our team,” Pillar said.

Prior to his two breakout performances, Pillar had been hitting just .115 with a .294 OPS over 26 at-bats during the month of April. Thus far in May, Pillar has been making Rojas’ decision pay off, and he told reporters that it’s been great to be able to come through for the squad.

“It’s definitely been satisfying. I like to remind people that I can play this game and I have had success in the major leagues. When my name is called, I’m just going to go out there and play hard and try to help the team win,” Pillar said.