Ponies' Nido fights off cold with hot night
The way Tomás Nido swung the bat on Friday night could've fooled anyone who knew how he was feeling throughout the day."I'm actually pretty sick with a cold, so going into today, I was just trying to do not so much when I'm up at the plate," Nido said. "It's
The way Tomás Nido swung the bat on Friday night could've fooled anyone who knew how he was feeling throughout the day.
"I'm actually pretty sick with a cold, so going into today, I was just trying to do not so much when I'm up at the plate," Nido said. "It's just one of those games where you try to concentrate and not really worry about what the outcome is going to be. And it ended up being a great outcome."
The Mets' 10th-ranked prospect went 4-for-5 with a homer and four RBIs to power Double-A Binghamton to a 9-2 triumph over Bowie at Prince George's Stadium. He also scored three runs and fell a triple shy of the cycle.
Gameday box score
"I was just trying to hunt the fastball, something over the middle of the plate, and get a good pitch to hit," Nido said. "I was getting the pitches I was looking for all night and making hard contact at the right time."
The 23-year-old catcher opened the scoring with a single to right field in the first inning that plated Champ Stuart. He doubled the Rumble Ponies' lead to 4-0 in the third by taking a 1-1 offering from Baysox starter Matthew Grimes over the wall in left-center field.
"I was actually looking for that exact pitch because he had thrown it the pitch before and he kind of froze me on it," Nido said. "So I kind of took a gamble and was expecting the same pitch and it paid off."
From there, the 2012 eighth-round pick added a single up the middle in the fifth and an RBI double in the eighth before scoring his third run on a base hit by Kevin Kaczmarski.
"It definitely feels really good to have a game like this after putting the work I've been putting in these past couple of weeks," Nido said. "I started the season pretty slow, so just getting back on track. It feels good the manager has that kind of confidence in me that I'm going to produce for the team. The hard work definitely paid off."
The four-hit game raised Nido's batting average to .327 (16-for-49) in May after he hit .196 in his first month at Double-A. It was the second of his career, with the first one coming on Sept. 3, 2016 when he was with Class A Advanced St. Lucie.
"The cold weather was definitely a bit of a shock for me. I had never played in cold weather before," the Florida native said. "Just getting used to that and getting my body ready on time when it's cold, I think I didn't take that serious enough. I thought I was just going to get acclimated to the weather. Stuff like that just took me a little longer than I expected, but I'm glad I'm able to make that adjustment early."
Nido's four-RBI game comes on the heels of a similar performance by teammate David Thompson. It's the first time Binghamton players recorded four or more RBIs in consecutive games since July 14-17, 2014, when Darrell Ceciliani and Dustin Lawley accomplished the feat.
Mets No. 16 prospect Luis Guillorme added two hits along with Matt Oberste and Kacmarski as the Rumble Ponies fell one shy of its season high of 15.
Donovan Hand (2-1) was the beneficiary of the outburst, allowing one run on seven hits and three walks while striking out two over six innings.
Michael Peng is a contributor to MiLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelXPeng.
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