Collins, Mets pass on Conforto callup

Michael Conforto has hit .537 with an absurd 1.465 OPS in the first 14 games since his last demotion to Triple-A Las Vegas. But the Mets did not call up perhaps their best hitting prospect Saturday when they put Justin Ruggiano on the disabled list again.

Instead, T.J. Rivera was brought back because of the glut of leftyhitting outfielders on the Mets. Rivera, a righthanded hitting infielder, took fly balls in the outfield Saturday before the Mets took batting practice and will get work there to evaluate whether he can offer the Mets a righty option, Terry Collins said.

“We could’ve brought him in, but where we playing him?” Collins said of Conforto. “Who’s going to sit? We’ve got all those lefthanders on the bench. And in a couple days, we might have to make a move and bring another pitcher in. We don’t know about our pitching situation. We didn’t want to jump too fast and say, ‘Oh, it’s got to be Conforto,’ because, again, where’s he going to play?”

Collins opined that using Conforto in center field the last time he was in the majors put extra pressure on the outfielder. “Yeah, it probably did,” Collins said. “When we get him back in here, he’s got to be able to do what he did last year. The one thing we don’t need is another guy who’s struggling,

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Ruggiano, who had just come off the disabled list Aug. 18 for a hamstring injury, aggravated his aching left shoulder Friday night. Collins said it was “pretty bad, so we’re going to try to rehab that shoulder and see where he is in a couple of weeks.” There’s no set timetable for Ruggiano’s possible return.

Without the right-handed Ruggiano, Collins will “mix and match in center field” with left-handed hitters Alejandro De Aza and Curtis Granderson, even against lefties. De Aza started there Saturday. Collins admitted that not having a righty-hitting outfielder besides Yoenis Cespedes is “a challenge. (Rivera) is going to get a lot of work out there in case. We don’t have a left-handed starter coming up for about eight more days, so we’re OK.”

Rivera started eight games in left in Triple-A this season.