WASHINGTON — The Mets found Nimmo. Or maybe it was Brandon Nimmo who found himself again.
The Mets’ team leader, who came into Monday’s game against the Washington Nationals hitting below the Mendoza line, drove in nine runs in a 19-5 win at Nationals Park, tying Carlos Delgado for the club record in single-game RBI.
After going 0-for-9 over the last two games, Nimmo went 4-for-6 with two a three-run homer, a grand slam and a two-run double. He scored a run in the first before going on to hit long balls off of left-hander Colin Poche and right-hander Cole Henry in the sixth and seventh innings, and a double off Eduardo Salazar in the eighth.
“I’ve been hitting the ball harder lately, and that’s usually a good sign,” Nimmo said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, usually. So I’m just trying to stay with it and keep trusting it would come along. It was great to have a day like today because it’s been a little frustrating…
“You never know when days like this might happen.”
Nimmo was informed that he tied a club record following the game, but even before that, he knew nine was high. First base coach Antoan Richardson asked him after the double if nine was a career-high mark. Nimmo was pretty sure his previous best was five.
As a franchise player who was drafted by the Mets and signed an eight-year contract in 2022 to be able to retire with the Mets, his name is already in the record books. But every time he inks it again, it means something.
“That obviously doesn’t happen every day,” Nimmo said. “But even just getting balls in the air and hitting balls hard, it doesn’t always work out like that. So I really just enjoyed today.”
Jeff McNeil went 2-for-5 with a home run, a triple and three RBI. Luisangel Acuña had a three-hit game while five other players had two hits. There were contributions from up and down the order as the Mets became the first team of the season to win 20 games (20-9).
Facing former Mets right-hander Trevor Williams in the bottom of the second, Mark Vientos and Nimmo set the table with back-to-back one-out singles. Francisco Alvarez drove a double to the left field corner to score Vientos and put the Mets on the board, 1-0.
McNeil then worked a 10-pitch at-bat, sending two line drives down the right side that landed just foul. Finally, he put a ball in play, allowing Nimmo to come home on a sacrifice fly. He then made it 3-0 in the fifth when he teed off on the first pitch he saw from Williams and put it into the stands for his first home run of the season.
Nimmo’s fireworks came in the top of the sixth.
Williams (1-3) issued one-out walks to Jesse Winker and Mark Vientos before the Nats (13-16) went to the bullpen for a left-hander to counter the left-handed Nimmo. Poche tried to get him to chase a slider in the dirt, but he didn’t blink. He then threw a fastball high for ball 2, setting up Nimmo for a big swing on the third pitch.
He swung on a fastball at the top of the zone and connected, sending it 410 feet into the left-center stands and doubling the Mets’ lead, 6-0.
“Really thankful that the guys in front of me were putting up great at-bats,” Nimmo said. “I thought [Vientos] had some unbelievable at-bats, laying off some really tough pitches.”
Pete Alonso drove in a run in the seventh before Winker was walked to load the bases. After Vientos struck out, Nimmo took a 2-3 fastball and drove it to the home bullpen in left field, hitting a grand slam for the second time in his career to put the Mets up big, 11-0.
The Mets didn’t stop there. They loaded the bases on Salazar in the eighth and Nimmo’s double scored two. McNeil’s ground ball scored Vientos, and Nimmo scored on Acuña’s line drive to center field.
Griffin Canning shut out the Nats over five innings, but the Mets could have used a few more out of the right-hander. He pitched around traffic with walks putting a decent dent in his pitch count, but was able to effectively limit hard contact. Canning allowed four hits, walked three and struck out five in the win (4-1).
“I’d like to get deeper in the game,” Canning said. “I think I can clean up some stuff with my execution on my changeup and slider when I’m ahead in the count. But yeah, I’m not going to complain about five zeros.”
A big lead gave a beleaguered bullpen a chance to breathe.
Max Kranick pitched the sixth, and right-hander Jose Ureña went the rest of the way, giving up all five runs scored by Washington in the bottom of the eighth, but still earning a three-inning save.
Vientos capped the scoring in the ninth inning with a home run off former Mets shortstop and one-time top prospect, Amed Rosario. There was a certain humor in the situation that could only be appreciated by fans of the Mets.
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