Hobbled Nimmo doing all he can to extend Mets' run

LOS ANGELES -- The worst part, Brandon Nimmo says, is getting out of bed in the morning.

“Terrible,” was how Nimmo described it. “But that’s normal plantar fasciitis.”

The condition tends to improve once Nimmo starts moving around, which is also typical for plantar fasciitis. But it never totally goes away. Since aggravating his left foot injury in National League Division Series Game 3 last week, Nimmo has gone through a regular routine of stretching, massage, ice, contrast therapy, dry needling and work with an FDA-approved machine designed to treat it.

All the extra effort has helped, to a point. Nimmo has managed to be on the field for the vast majority of postseason play, with two recent exceptions in the ninth innings of games. He expects to continue to play for as long as he’s physically able.

“This is the best I’ve got right now,” Nimmo said Monday evening, after going 0-for-4 in the Mets’ 7-3 NLCS Game 2 win over the Dodgers. “I hit balls well today, had good at-bats, made a play on defense. So I’m the best Nimmo that there is right now. I’ll give it everything I’ve got and try to help us win however I can.”

How exactly Nimmo entered this new reality isn’t entirely clear to him. Although Nimmo has battled plantar fasciitis since May, it didn’t become a major issue until NLDS Game 3. At some point during that game, whether it was deking down the third-base line or sprinting in pursuit of a fly ball, Nimmo aggravated the injury. All he knows is that later that night, and especially the next day, his left foot began barking. It hasn’t stopped barking since.

“You just try to help out however you can,” Nimmo said. “It’s October. It’s the middle of October, and nobody’s healthy. So you just … take pills, you do all the stuff that you can, and you just get through it.”

The fact that Nimmo’s results have been lacking may be mostly coincidental. Although Nimmo has fallen into an 0-for-13 rut since homering in NLDS Game 2, he’s hit several balls hard during that stretch, including 106.7 and 103.5 mph line-drive outs in NLCS Game 2 at Dodger Stadium. He’s also been taking his walks, as per usual, and has reached base safely in every Mets playoff game other than NLCS Game 1.

“Accelerating, the first step is not very fun -- and decelerating,” Nimmo said. “But in between that, when I need it, when I need to go, I can. I don’t know if I’m 100 percent, but I’m good enough. So there’s that.”

Overall, Nimmo is batting .212/.333/.303 in the playoffs with one home run and no other extra-base hits. He hasn’t attempted a stolen base. After riding Nimmo for every inning of every game over the first two rounds of the playoffs, manager Carlos Mendoza pinch-hit for him in the ninth inning of NLCS Game 1, then removed him on defense in the ninth inning of Game 2.

“It got to a point where you see him limping when he’s taking the field and things like that,” Mendoza said, noting that he has no plans to take Nimmo out of the starting lineup or use him at DH. “But it was nothing serious until that last series, when he started feeling it really, really bad.”

After the postseason, Nimmo intends to receive a platelet-rich plasma injection that will put him in a walking boot for weeks, but that he and team officials believe will solve the issue. Although surgery is a possibility for the most severe plantar fasciitis cases, Nimmo said, “we’re going to hope we’re not in that 1 percent.”

In the meantime, Nimmo will keep grinding, “throwing everything at it, just trying to get through it.”

A team leader, and one of just 10 big leaguers drafted in 2011 or earlier who’s still with his original club, the 31-year-old Nimmo was one of the Mets’ better hitters during the regular season, with a .224/.327/.399 slash line that doesn’t entirely tell the story of his summer. From early May through mid-July, Nimmo shouldered much of the offensive load, hitting 13 homers, stealing six bases and knocking home 44 runs over a 58-game stretch.

The Mets don’t need him to be that type of player now. They just need him to be dangerous, in whatever form that takes.

“It is what it is,” Nimmo said. “We’re going to stay on the field for as long as I possibly can.”