What made Brandon Nimmo’s clutch home run all the more stunning for Mets

ATLANTA — Brandon Nimmo runs. Always. Famously. His hustling has become an identifiable quirk, just about the only player in baseball who charges to first base after a walk.

Which made Monday’s top of the eighth inning of the opener all the more stunning. The swing was powerful, but so was the admiration.

Nimmo, one of the club’s leaders and one of the more throwback players in the game, helped power the Mets into the postseason — with some help in the ninth inning, as it turned out — and powered his dugout into delirium with a two-run home run in the 8-7, playoff-clinching win over the Braves at Truist Park in the first game of the regular-season-ending doubleheader.

What will be remembered most will be Francisco Lindor’s go-ahead, two-run homer. Edwin Diaz’s eighth-inning implosion, between-inning plea to manager Carlos Mendoza and ninth-inning survival will be memorable. But the Mets would not have escaped and punched their ticket without the last blow of the top of the eighth, during which Nimmo transformed.

After seven silent innings against Spencer Schwellenbach, the Mets finally awoke. Tyrone Taylor’s double knocked the Braves starter from the game and began a stretch of five consecutive hits. Francisco Alvarez’s double provided the first Mets run. Lindor’s single scored another. Jose Iglesias’ hit tied the game at 3-3 before Mark Vientos’ sacrifice fly gave the Mets their first lead of the game.

Nimmo then provided a cushion that would prove necessary.

The fourth pitch he saw from Raisel Iglesias was a middle-of-the-plate fastball that Nimmo was waiting for. He turned on it and watched it go. He dropped his bat. He took nine steps, walking his way to first base while gazing at the trajectory of a 405-foot bomb that reached the Chop House in right field.

“It’s a huge moment,” Nimmo said with a smile after the Mets and Braves split the doubleheader and both teams launched champagne-spraying celebrations. “I knew it when I hit it. I knew it was gone. No disrespect to Iglesias. Just a huge moment.”

Those nine steps included a glance at a dugout whose roof had been blown off.

“They were all howling and jumping past the dugout,” Nimmo said. “It was just euphoria coming over you.”

The 6-3 lead that the Mets held would not last, but the image of the dugout will. Lindor, bad back and all, leapt the dugout railing and onto the field to lead the cheering.