51s’ Brandon Nimmo, T.J. Rivera battle for batting title

The 51s won’t spend the final series of the season competing for a playoff berth, but something else is on the line.

Center fielder Brandon Nimmo and third baseman T.J. Rivera are first and second in the hunt for the Pacific Coast League batting title entering the four-game series at Salt Lake that begins Friday.

Nimmo recently has distanced himself from Rivera and is hitting .355 to Rivera’s .345. Nimmo went 3-for-5 in Las Vegas’ 5-2 victory at El Paso on Thursday, and Rivera was 1-for-4.

In fact, the 51s could finish 1-2-3 in the batting race. Shortstop Gavin Cecchini is third at .325.

“I got down here (Tuesday), and a couple guys just started joking around, ‘Oh, man, Nimmo’s running away with the batting title,’ ” Rivera said. “And then they were like, ‘(The Mets) must have sent you down to take the batting title.’ I had no idea what they were even talking about.”

After Rivera was called up to the New York Mets on Saturday, it looked as if Nimmo would be battling for the title himself.

Rivera was hitting .347, and with rosters expanding Thursday, it looked as if he would be staying in New York for the remainder of the season.

“I didn’t want to see him back down here,” Nimmo said. “It’s unfortunate that we are going to be kind of battling this out until the end of the season, but that’s just the way it’s going, so it’ll be a good little friendly competition. Hopefully it’ll just make both of us better.”

The two have taken slightly different paths to get to this point.

Rivera is a lifetime .323 hitter in the minor leagues, and Las Vegas manager Wally Backman said he wasn’t surprised to see him near the league lead.

In 2014, Rivera hit .349 between two levels, and last season, he hit .325 combined in Double A and Triple A.

“I think this year T.J. being able to go to the big leagues and have some success up there, I think he’s finally proven to people that he can hit,” Backman said. “He’s not the prototypical New York Met that walks and takes a lot of pitches. T.J.’s just a pure hitter. He gets the barrel. When he swings, he hits stuff and he’s not up there to walk.”

Rivera said somewhere around the halfway point in the season, he knew he was leading the league in hitting, but upon his return, he had no idea that was still the case.

“I didn’t really put a number to it at the beginning of the year, but I kind of just wanted to grind it out and have good at-bats and try to do it consistently throughout the year,” Rivera said. “I think that kind of tells me that I’ve done that, but, I mean, I’m also not done.”

Nimmo had a slower start to the season but has finished strong, and Backman often has said that he never has seen a player improve as much over the course of one season as Nimmo has.

“I’ve watched this kid grow through the year, and I’m just watching him get better and better and better,” Backman said. “As an organization, we always knew he had the tools. That’s why he was a No. 1 pick, but to see it come together this fast this year has been impressive.”

Nimmo said he didn’t realize he was in a race for the batting title until he tied Rivera recently and other people had started telling him.

“I didn’t necessarily think that I would be here. Did I have the confidence that I could be here at some point? Yeah, I had some thoughts that I could,” Nimmo said. “I definitely considered myself a good hitter and in the same category. T.J. is a very, very good hitter, someone that we are all in awe of, and so to be in a race with him, it’s an honor.”

Said Backman: “It’s a huge achievement for either one of those guys to win it. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often, no matter where you’re at. If it’s the major leagues or if it’s in the minor leagues at any level, it’s something that should be very special to a player.”

Betsy Helfand can be reached at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow on Twitter:@BetsyHelfand