Brandon Nimmo’s nagging foot injury puts Mets’ Opening Day in doubt

Brandon Nimmo’s foot issue from last season will bleed into spring training, but he hopes it will be solved by Opening Day.

The Mets outfielder, who was hobbled by plantar fasciitis and clearly limited during the playoff run last year, has begun a running progression but has yet to sprint.

Nimmo, whose spring training regimen over the past few seasons has been more incremental anyway as he more values trying to keep his body fresh for the entire year, expects the progression to continue through camp and acknowledged he “probably won’t be in those first few [Grapefruit League] games.”

“I have been able to work out, I’ve been able to hit,” Nimmo said Saturday at “Amazin’ Day,” a fan fest at Citi Field. “Been able to do everything except for sprinting on it.”

Nimmo received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his left foot at the end of the season after he played through the pain.

He declined to cite his foot as a reason for his late swoon, but his excellent first half (.815 OPS) was followed by a rough second half (.596 OPS). His discomfort was apparent, and he struggled to sprint particularly in the postseason.

The left fielder blamed his offensive downturn on being too reactionary in changing his approach, and he hopes to fix that this year.

“I think I got pitched really well for a time period after the All-Star break, and I started to think, ‘OK, I’m not getting the results that I want after, let’s say, two weeks, maybe a little bit more,’ ” Nimmo said. “And I thought, ‘OK, maybe need to start switching things up a little bit.’

“And I think making that pivot probably was not a great idea in the hindsight of things.”

Nimmo enters offseasons with specific goals in mind and over the winters has taken strides in improving against opposing lefty pitchers, as a center fielder and boosting his power.

Last offseason, he made his mission to boost his baserunning, and he proceeded to steal 15 bases without getting caught once after totaling 15 stolen bases in his previous five seasons combined.

This offseason, he said, he has been working with weighted balls to help his arm strength and hopes to get back to being the hitter he was during the first half last season.

Checking off those goals, though, would only be possible after getting past plantar fasciitis. In slowly progressing through his running schedule, he wants to avoid any in-season setback.

“We can’t see the future, but we’re trying to prepare for it not to happen again,” Nimmo said.