NY Mets News: Brandon Nimmo injuries stealing another season

Brandon Nimmo will miss at least the next 10 days with a hamstring injury. Now unable to reach 100 games played yet again in 2021, the New York Mets outfielder will have another season where we have to wonder what might have been.

Now in his sixth major league season, but just the fourth where he has been a regular, Nimmo has done what he consistently has for the last few years. A pure one-base guy with a .420 OBP and a rather terrific .302 batting average paired with it, Nimmo proved once again in 2021 that he is more than a fourth outfielder.

However, the biggest complaint even the biggest fan of his can have struck again. Nimmo cannot stay on the field and it’s becoming detrimental to his future.

Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo simply cannot stay healthy

Since his breakout year in 2018 where he played 140 games and received 535 plate appearances, Nimmo has missed time regularly. He followed that year up with a 69 game, 254 plate appearance year in 2019 then managed to play in 55 of the team’s 60 games in 2020.

This year, with 77 games played now, he’s going to come up well short of qualifying for any batting or OBP title. It’s another year where Nimmo’s inability to stay on the field has big his greatest weak point.

The Mets have to wonder where they can go from here. Nimmo has actually played an above-average center field this year. He only recently made his first error of the season at the position. Looking even beyond errors and fielding percentage, his other metrics are strong. One can simply use the eye test as well to know Nimmo has gotten better with his glove at a position many didn’t believe he could play.

It’s maddening to see Nimmo go down at this point in the season, too. One of the club’s few consistent hitters and biggest rally starters, he’s going to be sorely missed for any length of time.

As Mets fans know well, a 10-day IL stint rarely means 10 days. Losing him probably means a lot of Kevin Pillar in center field. Worse, it makes the top of the lineup weaker.

I’ve been enjoying the combination of Nimmo and Jonathan Villar at the top of every Mets starting lineup for the last few days. It has worked amazingly well and should be linked to why the team has managed to crawl right back into the race. Playing the Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals hasn’t hurt either.

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It’s impossible to prevent injuries and even the most iron of horses these days does land on the IL at some point. For Nimmo, it’s a huge blow to another successful season. We’ll just have to hope that if the team can make any kind of run to the postseason he’s back and smiling by the time playoff baseball begins.