SAN FRANCISCO — All of it stemmed from a snub.
In 2025, Brandon Nimmo has progressively improved his numbers every month of the season and is at the moment using a streak of 18 straight video games reaching base, the sixth-longest of his profession. The left fielder has hit up and down the lineup, lately returning the leadoff spot the place he made his profession, and in opposition to left-handed pitching, Nimmo is hitting .265 with a .787, along with his OPS rating because the seventh-best in baseball in opposition to southpaws.
The important thing to unlocking a virtually slump-proof Nimmo is solely consistency. And well being, that too. However to get up to now, he needed to drop his pursuit of perfection on the plate and get again to what made him good within the first place.
Nimmo thought he was deserving of a spot on the NL All-Star group final 12 months after hitting .248 with an .815 OPS and 16 house runs over the primary half. It was the second straight season through which he felt he was deserving and posted numbers just like others who have been chosen, but did not make the group.
It received to him.
“When I didn’t make the All-Star Game, I felt like, ‘OK, then I’m not good enough. I need to do more,’” Nimmo stated.”That received me in bother. I wasn’t being myself there for a number of weeks, and that form of tail spun.”
Small tweaks and changes are frequent all through the season, however Nimmo began making such drastic changes to his mechanics that he overcorrected, creating extra points he needed to repair. The pendulum was swinging too removed from one path to the subsequent.
He was involved about practically the whole lot in his swing. His hand placement, how he ought to use his palms, how he was loading and the way he was utilizing his legs.
By the point he was capable of appropriate the problems, the plantar fasciitis in his foot flared up. Whereas the corrections and overcorrections have been one thing he might management, the damage wasn’t.
“That was the biggest challenge,” Barnes stated. “Once we were trying to get him back, then we were also dealing with an injury.”
He completed the season hitting simply .190 with a .595 OPS. He was on the upswing by the point the Mets made the postseason and produced by the Wild Card and NLDS rounds, however the plantar fasciitis hindered him in opposition to the Los Angeles Dodgers within the NLCS, and the damage lingered by the winter.
Barnes had an extended dialog with the left fielder through the offseason the place they mapped out a easy purpose of staying true to the ideas and processes that had all the time made him profitable. The mechanics required to hit baseballs are developed by repetition of the identical actions time and again. Steadiness and uniformity need to be there.
Flexibility in strategy must be there as properly. Changes need to be made because the season goes on and pitchers alter to sure hitters. But it surely’s simpler to get again to what works when the modifications aren’t so drastic that his swing turns into fully totally different.
“When we are consistent, if things get off, we can get him back pretty quick,” Barnes stated. “But when we go look at the information and there’s like, 72 different types of swings, it’s hard to really dial into it. So, that’s the biggest thing. He’s just been highly consistent with his work, and the changes he’s made have been small and impactful, as opposed to big, massive shifts.”
Now 32 with practically 10 years of massive league expertise, Nimmo remains to be ready for that first All-Star choice. But when it doesn’t come, he’s not going to work himself right into a funk or work his swing into one thing it’s not.
“I’m going to trust the process,” Nimmo stated. “I’m not going to be successful all the time, but that’s OK.If I do the little things right on a daily basis, I should be okay in the long run.”
NOTES
The Mets haven’t but activated Gregory Soto, the left-hander acquired in a commerce from the Baltimore Orioles on Friday. The Orioles have been at house on the time of the commerce so he needed to journey throughout the nation, however the Mets anticipate him to reach Saturday night time.
Proper-hander Tylor Megill (shoulder impingement) threw a bullpen Thursday, and can throw one other Sunday. Supervisor Carlos Mendoza stated he’s “moving in the right direction,” however the Mets haven’t but put a timeline on a return.
Initially Revealed: July 26, 2025 at 9:01 PM EDT
