Brandon Nimmo did his best Nemo impression.
One day after a costly mistake on the bases extinguished a potential ninth-inning comeback, Nimmo bounced back with a solo home run and a diving catch in center field Friday as the Mets beat the Rockies, 1-0, at Citi Field.
“You have to be like a goldfish in this game and have a short-term memory,” Nimmo said, stopping short of name-dropping the title character in the 2003 Pixar sea-creature film “Finding Nemo.” “Just remembering it’s a long season and this too shall pass, going into it with a new mindset for the next game.”
Nimmo quickly owned the poor fundamental play Thursday to get caught stealing second with one out when the Mets had the tying run at the plate in the ninth.
But his best response came with his bat — he owns a career .968 OPS in 24 career games against the Rockies — and his glove.
Wary of falling behind in the count against Antonio Senzatela, Nimmo led off the bottom of the fourth with a first-pitch home run.
“I’ve faced him for a long time now,” Nimmo said. “He angles his fastball in well. He pitches his changeup off of it well with the lefties, and can go with his off-speed to both sides of the plate. And he does a good job of reading swings. He has many different pitches that move just a little bit differently than the others. When [pitchers] tunnel that well it makes them hard to square up.”
Mets manager Buck Showalter rejected the premise that Nimmo had a “rough game” that he needed to put in the rear-view mirror.
“I’m trying to figure that one out: ‘Rough game,’ ” Showalter said. “This is a guy who plays with effort, leads off as good as anybody in baseball. I choose not to listen to some of that.
“We all know what he’s about and what he means to our team. I think he was the only guy to hit the ball hard [Thursday] off a really good pitcher and can play the heck out of center field. We’re lucky to have him. It doesn’t surprise us to see him be a focal point.”
Only a few minutes after providing the game’s only run, Nimmo made a forward-diving catch of a sinking liner by Ezequiel Tovar leading off the top of the fifth.
“I had just moved over because it looked like he was [swinging] pretty late on everything,” Nimmo said. “He just kind of got the barrel there, and I felt like it was staying up long enough for me to be able to get underneath and I was able to slide underneath it with that half-dive thing, where I just need to get low enough. I felt like I got a pretty good jump on it, and obviously was happy to make the catch.”
Nimmo also doubled in the game, upping his average to .356 with a .963 OPS in his last 21 games.
“He responds every day to the competition,” Showalter said. “If you are going to get involved in listening to all that [noise], you are not going to survive at this level. He gets involved in the competition every day and being there for his teammates and trying to do good things for the New York Mets and the fans.”