Kirk Nieuwenhuis likes to finish a game with his uniform covered in dirt from his chest to his shoes. “It’s usually a good sign when it is,” the Mets center fielder said.
He was flat filthy last night, covered in dust after 10 innings of hard-nosed baseball, when he once again impressed his teammates and Mets fans with the kind of hustle that makes him look like a keeper.
Sure, it’s early to put Nieuwenhuis in Cooperstown. But Andres Torres better get healthy quickly or he might find himself without a job.
“The fans are going to have a fun watching him play,” said Mets catcher Josh Thole, who played with Nieuwenhuis in the minor leagues. It already has been fun.
The only reason why the Mets went into extra innings against the Giants last night at Citi Field was because of Nieuwenhuis. Without him, the Giants would have cruised to a victory in the opener of a four-game series. Instead, they had to sweat out a 4-3 victory in 10 innings.
The Giants had control of the game after a three-run third-inning started by a solo home run by former Met Angel Pagan. If not for Nieuwenhuis, the lead would have been insurmountable. Instead, it became a ballgame. Nieuwenhuis already knows to never give up.
His effort to steal victory from certain defeat actually started in the second inning. That’s when he charged in from center field and made a diving catch of a low liner by Brandon Crawford when the Giants had the bases loaded with one out. Nieuwenhuis popped up from the turf so quickly after making the catch, it kept the Giants from scoring.
“The ball was rising, actually,” Nieuwenhuis said. “I thought it was going to get down, but it stayed up pretty good.”
Pagan’s homecoming home run in the third, his first homer of the season, helped give the Giants all of the momentum. But after Jason Bay belted a solo home run in the fourth, Nieuwenhuis did what no other Mets lefty hitter has done in the past four seasons.
He added his own solo blast in the fifth over the left-field wall to cut the Giants lead to 3-2. It was the second home of the year for Nieuwenhuis and made him the first Mets left-handed hitter to belt an opposite field home run at Citi Field. Sure, the reconfigured fences are closer than they originally were, but Nieuwenhuis’ blast off Barry Zito was a legit shot.
“It was one of those see and react,” Nieuwenhuis said, “but I think it was a curveball.”
If he needed to open any more eyes, he did so in the eighth inning when he made one of the best catches you’ll ever see. With two out and no one on, Giants catcher Hector Sanchez hit a bomb off Mets reliever Jon Rauch deep into the gap near the wall in left-center. Nieuwenhuis turned in full sprint, dove toward the warning track and somehow made the catch fully extended. He sounded as if it were routine.
“I knew I had enough room to get there,” he said. “So I just got there.”
His terrific catch kept the game at 3-2 and gave the Mets a chance to tie. They did that in the bottom in the ninth when Thole hit a run-scoring single to plate Bay, whose infield single started the rally. Nieuwenhuis was in the middle of the rally as well, drawing a walk.
The Mets eventually lost the game when Frank Francisco couldn’t hold the Giants in the 10th. And though Nieuwenhuis was charged with a fielding error in the extra inning, it didn’t take too much away from his .371 average in 35 at-bats with seven runs scored and 21 total bases.
He will have to adjust when scouting reports circulate and pitchers start to find a weakness. But so far, you’ve got to like what you see of this kid, dirty uniform and all.