Brandon Nimmo got benched on Sunday against the Washington Nationals after going 0-for-10 with eight strikeouts in three games prior to that. However, he ended up pinch-hitting and went 1-for-3 with a double and no strikeouts.
On Tuesday night, he continued the positive trend as he went 2-for-4 with a double, home run, and a walk. Nonetheless, the strikeouts still came for him as he did so twice, once against Twins’ starter Kyle Gibson and once against left-handed reliever Adalberto Mejia.
His home run came in the third inning after the Mets fell down 5-1 in the top half of the inning as he hit a solo home run to center field with nobody out. His double, meanwhile, happened in the bottom of the fifth inning off of Gibson as he led off with a double to center field.
The 2019 season has certainly not gone the way he would have liked early in the season, as he is hitting .152/.300/.303 with only one home run and two doubles to give himself a grand total of three RBI thus far and six runs scored.
On the positive side, he has walked six times this season which has helped raise his OBP. On the flip side, he has an absolutely horrendous 46.3% strikeout rate which is going to makes him impossible to start if it continues at the rate.
In all likelihood, he has just started off the 2019 season on the wrong foot and will get out of it in short order, but the team definitely will need to see a lot more of the Brandon Nimmo from Tuesday night than of the first eight games of the year.
The Mets will almost certainly give him every chance to break out of this slump, though, and let him prove to be the catalyst at the top of the lineup that he was in 2018.
