Brandon Nimmo thought a disabled-list stay was off the table regarding his left index finger. He was struck by a pitch while grounding out Thursday. There was pain. But no break. So he thought no DL. Wrong.
Nimmo went on the 10-day disabled list Monday, retroactive to Friday. The outfielder will take the DL stay in a heartbeat.
“We really dodged a bullet and that’s what I’ve been told by two doctors,” Nimmo said. “Not sure how, but it’s not broken and that’s great, so that would have been season-ending pretty much.
“Now, it just might be 10 days. And honestly, that’s way better than season-ending [so] best case scenario here,” said Nimmo, who heads to Florida on Tuesday to begin rehab.
In announcing the move, assistant general manager John Ricco reiterated there was no structural damage that Nimmo suffered “but he’s still pretty sore and having trouble gripping the bat.”
With Nimmo on the DL, the Mets recalled Dom Smith, who was with the team for the Little League Classic in South Williamsport on Sunday.
Manager Mickey Callaway said the Mets will be looking at nothing in particular but everything in general from Smith in his latest attempt to stick in the majors.
“I don’t think it’s anything in particular, other than him going out there and grinding out at-bats and taking a good approach. We know he has the sweet swing, we know he has the ability to have good footwork and hands around first base,” said Callaway.
Ironically, Callaway said: “I do want to see the improvements he’s made in the outfield, which sounds like they’ve been pretty vast. I’m excited to see that.”
What he saw from Smith on Monday was him calling for a fly ball too late, colliding with shortstop Amed Rosario in the 13th inning with the ball plopping out and allowing the winning run to score.
“Inexperience,” Callaway said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re trying to get him reps when he was in Triple-A in left. He’s got a learning curve he’s got to go through to play left field the way he’s capable of playing it.”
Ricco summed up what the team wants to see from Smith as “consistency of effort.”
Callaway paid Monday’s starter, Zack Wheeler, a healthy compliment for “probably” having the “best stuff” on the staff when he was asked to compare him to another former pupil, Cleveland’s Carlos Carrasco, who also underwent Tommy John surgery.
“They’re exactly the same,” he said. “Everything about them — their development, who they are as a pitcher, they both have probably the best stuff on each of their staffs. They have comparable sliders, comparable curveballs, changeups, fastballs.”
Wheeler pitched well enough to win, done in by one run that came on an opposite-field hit by switch hitter Alen Hanson.
“Really impressed, I thought he threw another really great game. He dominated and did a great job he pitched out of a really big jam that [fifth] inning,” Callaway said.
Jay Bruce is continuing a rehab assignment at Class-A St. Lucie, along with David Wright.
“Jay, at this point, it’s less about the medical and more about the baseball side of it, getting his timing back,” Ricco said. “So a few more games and … once he gets that rhythm back, I think we’ll see him back here.”
Ricco said Bruce will play a “combination of first base and outfield” when he returns.
So Smith and Bruce will get some first-base time. Where does that leave prospect Peter Alonso?
“He’s having an excellent year,” Ricco said. “This season is as much about offense as it was about defense and he’s definitely shown improvement [there]. We’ll have to make a decision as to whether there is a call-up for him. There are a lot of factors involved. First and foremost, what is best for him, and there are roster considerations and playing-time issues at first base we’ll have to think about.”
Having emptied their bench, the Mets used pitcher Jason Vargas as a pinch hitter. He flew out to center for the final out of the game.