WASHINGTON — New York Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo was removed in the second inning against Washington with a stiff neck on Wednesday night, the latest flare-up of an issue that has bothered him since he ran into an outfield wall at Atlanta in 2019.
Nimmo said his neck was bothering him before the game and he tried to loosen it up enough to play, but it hindered him during his only at-bat — he grounded into a double play — and while playing the field.
“When I was running in, I wasn’t able to look up. So I was being a detriment on both ends,” Nimmo said. “Sometimes I can fight through it in the past, and I wasn’t able to.”
Nimmo said the injury normally takes 24 to 48 hours to start feeling better, a process aided by heat, muscle relaxers and exercises.
“It’s just unfortunately a chronic thing that I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my career,” Nimmo said. “And we’ve been able to do a pretty good job of keeping it at bay for the most part.”
Starling Marte replaced Nimmo in left and went 1 for 3 in the Mets’ 5-4 loss to the Nationals.
“After that first at-bat, he came up to me and said, ‘It’s hard for me to pull the trigger right now,'” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He came in and it’s something that he deals with every so often and usually gets better, but today wasn’t the case.”
Nimmo is batting .254 with 20 homers and 68 RBI. He has been durable, playing in 122 of the Mets’ 126 games through Wednesday. He has played no fewer than 151 games in each of the past three seasons.
His injury comes a day after catcher Francisco Alvarez was placed on the injured list with a sprained thumb ligament. And backup catcher Luis Torrens was also banged up Wednesday. His left hand was wrapped in ice in the clubhouse after the Nationals’ Drew Millas knocked the mitt off Torrens’ hand on a swing and was awarded first base on catcher’s interference.
Torrens stayed in the game and insisted afterward that he was fine.
“A little bit of pain,” he said through an interpreter, “but nothing out of this world, out of the ordinary.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.