Mets' Brandon Nimmo doesn't believe injury will necessitate IL stint, 'hopeful' to return Sunday
Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo left Saturday's game against the Atlanta Braves in the fifth inning due to right intercostal irritation, but the outfielder doesn't expect to be out long.
"I don’t think it’s IL," Nimmo said after New York's 4-1 loss. "I’m hopeful that tomorrow I will be good to go. I have 24 hours to recover which is a lot in baseball and I am hopeful for tomorrow. If it’s not [better by tomorrow] I don’t expect it to be much longer than that."
In the third inning, Nimmo seemed to tweak his side during his second at-bat. He didn't swing, but it was sort of a check swing that made the outfielder step out of the box and rub his right side. Manager Carlos Mendoza and the team trainer came out to talk to him but Nimmo wanted to finish the at-bat.
Nimmo wound up walking in his at-bat and played the field in the fourth inning before he was replaced in left field by Tyrone Taylor.
"It felt normal, there was a little bit of guard in there and I could tell that," Nimmo said about the subsequent swings he took in the at-bat after first feeling discomfort. "I was trying to do as much as I could to just get past it and move on in the at-bat, but it felt good for the most part.
"It was just more so knowing that it was a cold day and in one half inning of being out in the outfield it had started to tighten up a little bit and not wanting to exert it more in the cage but also needing to keep it warm for the next at-bat, and so that’s kind of where we came to the decision of let’s play it more safe. But yes I did take two more swings and was able to finish the at-bat and that gives me a lot of confidence moving forward."
The 31-year-old finished the day 0-for-1 with a walk, snapping his seven-game hit streak. He's now batting .228 on the season with a .375 OBP.
Nimmo said there's a possibility that he'll be able to play on Sunday in the series finale, but that he, Mendoza and the training staff wanted to play it safe for now as to not risk further injuring it.
"Probably could have continued, but my worry was just knowing where it was at, that if I had to check up and if I did more then we’re talking something more like 6-8 weeks rather than one or two days," he said. "...But if it does get worse then we’re talking something much more serious so we decided to play on the safer side."
