CESPEDES INJURY ADDS TO METS’ WOES:
Ces heads for DL on day stiff Syn scratched
erry Collins hesitated and adTmitted
he didn’t know what he could say. The Mets manager had to scratch his top pitcher Thursday morning and then hours later he could only watch as the team trainer and first base coach helped his best hitter hobble off the field.
Noah Syndergaard was scratched from his start Thursday morning with what the team says is tendinitis in his biceps/shoulder area. Hours later, Yoenis Cespedes needed help to hobble into the dugout after straining his left hamstring.
In a season full of injury blows to the Mets, any long-term injuries to these two could be the blows that leave the Mets staggering. It left the Mets scrambling to find some optimistic words to put out there. There was no sugarcoating this. Cespedes was taken to the Hospital for Special Surgery after Thursday’s game for a second opinion and more thorough examination by the team doctors. After watching the slugger pull up at second base in obvious pain on a double in the fourth inning and hobble off the field, Collins expects Cespedes to require a stint on the disabled list.
“I don’t even know if I am allowed to say it, but yeah, I am assuming he’s going to be out,” a clearly frustrated Collins said. “From what I saw, I don’t know anybody who comes back from that in 10 days.”
Cespedes, who spent the winter working on his leg strength at the Mets’ sponsored Barwis Method program, had missed three games over the weekend with an injury to the same hamstring. The Mets rested him five days and did not put him on the disabled list with the hope he’d avoid going on the DL.
Collins said Cespedes passed all the tests required by the Mets medical staff before he put him back in the lineup and he can’t second guess the decision now.
“The guy pulled a hamstring...he’s wound tight. I am going to go with that,” Collins said. “You can write all you want we should have put him on the DL, well we didn’t. He didn’t think it was necessary and thought he was going to be able to play. Now, he’s going to be out for a while.”
The Mets put out a more optimistic outlook on Syndergaard, but the pitcher not being able to raise his arm above his shoulder is more than a little concerning. The righthander said that he has felt discomfort in his arm and shoulder area since Monday. Syndergaard and Collins called the scratch a “precaution,” and said the plan “right now” is for him to be pushed back to start Sunday against the Nationals.
“I played catch yesterday, felt great playing catch, then it just kind of stiffens up once it gets cold. I couldn’t really lift my arm above my shoulder at that point. So I took another antiinflammatory last night and I felt really good this morning,” Syndergaard said. “I felt like I could go out there and compete, but right now it’s just a precautionary thing we’re dealing with. It’s a little thing right now, but we definitely don’t want it to turn into a big thing.”
Sorry, but any injuries to Syndergaard and Cespedes are a big deal.
They are both a very big deal to a team whose season is quickly slipping away.
After losing to the Braves 7-5 Thursday, the Mets have lost six straight and 10 of their last 11. An already challenging April is looking like it will carry over into May and perhaps beyond. They head to Washington to face the divisionleading Nationals five games below .500 for the first time since September 2014.
And they have to try and turn it around without Cespedes and maybe Syndergaard.
“We’re going to see what we’re made of,” Jose Reyes said.
Without Cespedes in the already struggling lineup, the Mets are just 18-26 over the last two seasons.
The Mets don’t want to find out what their record would be without Syndergaard in the rotation. That’s why they scratched him Thursday.
“Especially when you are talking about anything that runs into the shoulder to where he changes his delivery and other things happen. Right now, we’re going to back him up a few days and he would probably be available this weekend.”
That’s the hope, but with the Mets there is always some doubt when it comes to injuries. The team’s history gives us every reason to be cautious with any hopeful prognosis.