Mets lead-off man and center fielder Brandon Nimmo is back in the lineup, leading off, and playing center field for Wednesday’s contest against the St. Louis Cardinals despite suffering a right quad contusion after fouling a ball off his knee during the seventh inning of Thursday night’s 4-3 loss.
He toughed out the rest of his at-bat and hit a slow roller to shortstop that he busted down the line to try and beat. Not only was he out, but he came up limping and immediately left the game.
“He’s day to day,” Showalter said at the time. “Aren’t we all? We’ll see where he is tomorrow. He got hit there pretty good and had to sprint afterward.”
Nimmo was walking around the Mets clubhouse with a wrap on his right leg before on Wednesday afternoon shortly after running through some tests on the diamond at Citi Field to confirm whether or not he could play.
“I’m alright,” Nimmo said. “When I went to run and beat that out, it didn’t fire. I just tried to get there the best way I could… It feels alright now, I just have a lump on it… Right now it’s just bending it and whatnot. It’s sore to the touch.”
The team had already run tests on Nimmo’s leg Tuesday night to check for any ligament damage, which all came up negative.
“I’m fairly confident and hopeful to be ready [Wednesday],” Nimmo said Tuesday night. “I just couldn’t get it to go like normal. I wasn’t thinking the worst, I was just thinking ‘oh crap,’ I probably could have beat this out if I was healthy.”
The Mets are already down an outfielder with Starling Marte on the bereavement list after the sudden loss of his grandmother. Buck Showalter said that he could return to the team by Thursday.
“It’s important. If I can play I need to play,” Nimmo said. “That would be regardless if Marte was here. I feel like I have an important place on this team and I want to be playing if I’m able. It’ll come down to how I feel in the morning.”
