Nimmo dinged up, but Mets breathe sigh of relief after tests

NEW YORK -- After a 3-2 loss to the Marlins on Sunday afternoon at Citi Field, the Mets find themselves two games behind the Braves for the third National League Wild Card spot.

On the bright side, it appeared New York dodged a bullet when it comes to left fielder Brandon Nimmo, who left the game with right shoulder soreness. An MRI came back clean, according to manager Carlos Mendoza, and Nimmo is day to day.

Nimmo hurt his shoulder in the top of the seventh inning. With the game tied at 2 and two outs, the Marlins had runners on first and third when Nick Fortes hit a fly ball to no-man's-land in shallow left field. Nimmo ran hard and dove on his throwing shoulder to make the catch.

Before the injury occurred, it looked like Nimmo was going to be the hero, as his solo homer in the sixth inning against right-hander Valente Bellozo gave New York a 2-1 lead.

Nimmo's shoulder did not bother him right away. During the seventh-inning stretch, he felt soreness -- though not enough to stop him from facing Andrew Nardi in the bottom of the inning. After swinging at the first pitch, Nimmo needed to take a break because he felt pain in the back of his shoulder. He continued his at-bat, however, and struck out on five pitches to end the frame. Nimmo was replaced by Jeff McNeil in left field and Francisco Alvarez in the order in the top of the eighth inning.

“It’s a little sore right now," Nimmo said. "I felt it a little bit on the swing. Hopefully, it’s something that is not too serious, but we don’t know a lot about it right now. It feels dead right now, like I don’t want to do much with it. But [the doctor] said that’s how it’s going to feel for the next 12 hours or so."

The shoulder injury came when Nimmo has finally found his swing. Before Friday’s game, Nimmo was hitting .140 without a home run in the second half, but his fortunes in the batter’s box started to turn. In his past three games, Nimmo was 4-for-12 (.333) with two home runs and four RBIs.

“It’s frustrating. It’s baseball. But that catch [on Sunday] -- there was a point in the game where if that ball falls, [the Marlins] take the lead and we are late in the game,” Nimmo said. “Obviously, every game matters to us right now. It’s one I have to go for. I got to make the play. Sometimes things happen. We are going to find out the extent of the injury. I would do it over again. It’s a play that has to be made at the moment.”

The Mets will need Nimmo to heal up fast, as during the next 11 days, they face fellow contenders in the Orioles, Padres and D-backs.

“They are important,” Mendoza said. “Every game matters no matter who you are playing. We have Baltimore starting tomorrow and we have to take care of business there.”

Said Nimmo: “There will be a lot of pressure riding on these games. It brings the best out of teams and people. You are going to see some competitive games over these next couple of weeks. When you play teams that are [in the race], every pitch matters. So it’s going to be more like playoff baseball. I expect the guys to show up and play good baseball over the next couple of weeks.”

In retrospect, New York should have taken advantage of losing teams they faced in recent weeks like the Angels, Rockies, Athletics and Marlins. But the Mets went 6-6 against those teams. That’s not including the three games they lost to the Mariners, who are playoff contenders.

“We have to have a sense of urgency and we have that,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “The guys are playing good baseball games. Today was a good game. Now we have teams that are contending. We have to play the game well for us to beat them."

“The teams we just played and we lost -- we lost to the Angels, Miami, Colorado and then Seattle -- they have big leaguers," Lindor continued. "We faced [the Angels'] José Soriano; he was throwing 99 miles an hour. Ben Joyce came in at the end of [that] game throwing 104, 105 miles an hour. Miami’s bullpen is not a joke. Everybody that we are playing against, we are playing good players.”