MATZ MORE LIKE IT
Lefty puts up 6 zeroes as Mets blank Brewers
Steven Matz gave the Mets just what they needed. The left-hander threw six shutout innings in the Amazin’s 5-0 win over the Brewers on Thursday night in Milwaukee. Brandon Nimmo reached base five times to lead the offense, which banged out 13 hits.
MILWAUKEE — Brandon Nimmo is clearly immune to the lethargy that has infected the Mets lineup in recent weeks.
The energetic outfielder is a maestro working counts to reach base and has brought respectability to the top of the Mets’ order. But another facet of Nimmo’s game continues to emerge: He’s a force swinging the bat.
Thursday night, the Mets received the best of Nimmo, a linchpin in two rallies who helped his team snap a two-game skid with a 5-0 victory over the Brewers at Miller Park.
For a team that scored only four runs over three games against the Marlins earlier this week, the output was enough to make everyone giddy. And Steven Matz handled the run prevention, with six shutout innings against the NL Central leaders.
Nimmo finished 4-for-5, reaching base five times and scoring two runs on a night when every starting Mets position player got on base. Nimmo, who delivered two doubles and a triple as part of his barrage — he came within a homer of hitting for the cycle — has reached base in eight straight plate appearances.
“I am just really glad I have been able to create some traffic for Cabby behind me,” Nimmo said, referring to Asdrubal Cabrera. “He’s really been carrying this offense for a while, and to be able to give him more opportuni- ties than just one in a game is really beneficial for him and for our team.”
Nimmo, whose four hits were a career high, owns a .991 OPS and his four triples in 46 games are the Mets’ most since Jose Reyes had six in 2011.
“The extra-base hits are coming, the doubles tonight, the homers,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “When you have a guy who can be as patient as [Nimmo] can be and walk and then also hit extra-base hits, that turns into a really valuable player.”
The Mets’ breakout came after Callaway and his staff urged players to become more proactive in trying to break the team’s collective slump. Entering play, the Mets had scored two runs or fewer in five of their previous nine games.
“I think in the past here it’s been kinda wait around and the streaks will come,” Callaway said. “We talked about that being a challenge for everybody in the clubhouse. We have the hitters we have and they have gone through these stretches before and then all of a sudden they go through a stretch where they get really hot, and we’ve talked about baseball being a real streaky thing.
“But I don’t think we can let that, just because it’s worked in the past, and guys come out of it and we have a really good month and then a bad month and a good month, I don’t think that can make us just be happy with what is going on.”
The absences of Yoenis Cespedes and Todd Frazier, both of whom remain on the disabled list, have played a role in the drought, but Callaway wants his healthy players taking a focused approach.
Callaway is troubled by the fact the Mets entered play last in the major leagues in walks for May, after thriving in that area earlier in the season. As a result, a team built to hit home runs isn’t getting enough production from those blasts.
Matz (2-3) was coming off a shaky performance against the Diamondbacks last Saturday in which he allowed four runs in four innings. But the lefty sidestepped early trouble — including loading the bases with one out in the third — to finish six innings for only the second time this season.
Nimmo’s third hit of the game, a double against Zach Davies, helped fuel a two-run rally in the fifth. After Nimmo doubled Amed Rosario to third, Cabrera stroked a tworun double that gave the Mets a 3-0 lead. Wilmer Flores followed with an RBI single.
Nimmo stroked a triple leading off the third and scored the game’s first run on Flores’ sacrifice fly. Devin Mesoraco drove in the Mets’ final run with a double in the seventh.
Nimmo credited the regular at-bats he is receiving for his uptick.
“Just to be able to make adjustments from game to game and from at-bat to at-bat and pitch to pitch and not have to worry about just being one-and-done,” he said. “That’s a real big thing for anybody in this game. You can ask any hitter.”