When the Mets signed Nick Plummer during the offseason, it was a move that probably didn’t stir up any headlines or make the back page. It was a depth move for a prospect who was once highly touted but could potentially materialize down the road.
Well, it’s officially down the road and he's making back pages now.
After hitting his first career home run Sunday night that tied the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, Plummer didn’t waste any time for an encore.
In the Mets’ 13-5 rout over the Washington Nationals on Monday night, Plummer was in the middle of all of the action going 3-for-4 with a double, four RBI and the second home run of his short career.
“It’s great,” Plummer said after the game. “This is what you envision coming over here and being a part of this club and ultimately coming out with a win.”
With Travis Jankowski getting surgery on his left hand and out for six-to-eight weeks, Plummer is poised to get reps as the fourth outfielder for the foreseeable future and has already made quite the impression to fans, his teammates, and his manager.
“It’s special. It’s fun,” Buck Showalter said. “That’s what’s fun about these jobs, is the look in his face, and he’s trying to act – you can tell it’s like, you work your whole life. He’ll be 26 in July… It’s fun to kind of sit there and watch the joy he gets being here in the big leagues and contributing. I think everybody on the field has been in a similar situation, that newness and novelty of being in the big leagues early on and kind of reveling in it within.”
And why shouldn’t Plummer be reveling in it? After all, with his home run on Monday, he became the first player in Mets history to hit a home run in his first two starts.
So what’s his secret?
“Just try to keep it simple,” he said. “We’re a bunch of grown men playing the game. Same game we’ve been playing for 20, 30 years. Just try to keep it light, and ultimately have fun. I know it’s a game with a lot of ups, a lot of downs, but you like to ride out the good waves, and we got a pretty good club that when those waves that we don’t want hit, we get to stick together and just keep doing it. So it’s been really good.”
Winners of four straight, 16 games over .500 and owning a commanding lead over the rest of the NL East, the Mets are certainly having fun right now and Plummer is right in the middle of it.