Inside The Mets

Mets slugger laments Citi Field's impact on power

New York Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo isn't a fan of how Citi Field affects home runs in the season's early months.
Grant Young|
May 26, 2025; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo (9) reacts after hitting a single during the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
May 26, 2025; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo (9) reacts after hitting a single during the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

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The New York Mets have 33 home runs as a team at home games this season, which is 7th-best in all of MLB. Mets left fielder Brandon Nimmo, however, has eight home runs on the year, but only one of them has come at Citi Field.

This seems like a strange split, and could suggest some bad luck for Nimmo so far. However, according to a May 29 article from The Athletic's Tim Britton, Nimmo blames this home field power outage on the field itself more so than any factors that are under his control.

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In the article, Nimmo is portrayed comparing two balls he has hit in games, one from last June that was a 412-foot home run to center field and another from this April, which was a 332-foot flyout to left-center field. Both balls were hit with essentially the same exit velocity, but one traveled 80 feet farther than the other.

Since no analyst could give him a reason for this massive gap, Nimmo decided it was because Citi Field is a hard place to hit home runs in during the season's early months.

The article goes on to discuss how advanced analytics say Citi Field is tied for the fourth-hardest park for offense overall. Nimmo (whose career stats show that his power hitting numbers are almost always down in April and May, especially at home) went on to assert that all he can do about this is, "try to stay sane" until June rolls around, when both he and the statistics show that Citi Field becomes an easier place to hit home runs at.

The good news for Nimmo is that June is only a couple days away.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers the New York Mets and Women’s Basketball for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco, where he also played Division 1 baseball for five years. He believes Mark Teixeira should have been a first ballot MLB Hall of Fame inductee.

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