LOS ANGELES -- Brandon Nimmo tracked the baseball as he moved, sidestepping his way to the left-field fence. As the ball began to descend and Nimmo neared the wall, he risked a quick glance behind him to see where it was. When he looked back up, Nimmo realized the ball had shifted, in his estimation, a good 15 feet to his right. He tried to adjust, looking back over his other shoulder to find the ball again, but at that point, his fate was sealed.
The ball hit the warning track and took a high hop, not that it mattered any longer. Tommy Edman was already heading home with the winning run in the Mets’ 6-5, 10-inning loss to the Dodgers, which Freddie Freeman ended with his walk-off double to the fence.
“It just did what I didn’t think it was going to do there at the end,” Nimmo said of the baseball. “I didn’t think it had enough time to move that much.”
For the second straight night, the Mets found themselves in extra innings when Freeman came to the plate with two men on base and only one out. In left field, Nimmo was playing shallower than usual, trying to give himself a chance to throw out Edman on a base hit in front of him.
But Freeman did not hit a single. The former National League MVP instead sent a booming fly ball to the fence, saying afterward that “I thought I hit it out, to be honest.”
As he tracked the ball, Nimmo attempted to draw on his “years of experience” -- including plenty of hits from the left-handed Freeman, whose opposite-field swing can create loads of sidespin on a baseball.
“I had a read on it,” Nimmo said. “In fact, as long as it was staying in the park, I thought I was going to make a play on it.”
Had Nimmo done so, the Mets would have had an excellent chance to keep the proceedings going for an 11th inning. Once it dropped, the game was over.
“That ball slicing from a lefty, not an easy play,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Because of where he’s at positioning-wise, it’s not as routine as it looked.”
Thus ended a second consecutive chaotic game in which Mendoza attempted to balance the idea of winning with that of preserving his bullpen for the long summer. Mendoza was without closer Edwin Díaz, who by unofficial team rule does not pitch on three consecutive days in the first half of the season, and setup man Ryne Stanek, who has yet to throw on back-to-back days this year.
The Mets’ most-rested relievers were Reed Garrett and Minor League callup Brandon Waddell, whom Mendoza used in relief of Tylor Megill. But that only brought the Mets through eight innings. At that point, Mendoza had no choice but to begin using relievers he was trying to avoid, beginning with Huascar Brazobán, who blew the save in the ninth. Then, in the 10th, José Buttó intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani before giving up the fateful fly ball to Freeman.
When it landed, the Dodger Stadium crowd began screaming as Freeman’s teammates rushed the field.
“It’s been playoff-type atmosphere,” Nimmo said of the first half of this four-game series. “Dodger Stadium’s been rocking. It’s been a lot of fun. So it’s unfortunate when a game like that ends on a play like that, because it’s been so good and such high intensity and good baseball. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.”