Amazin’ flip-flop on Jake
DEGROM WON’T START, PUT ON DL
Some of us are old enough to remember when the Mets were salt-and-peppering their way to an 11-1 record, when injury confusion supposedly no longer would be the issue with this formerly snakebitten franchise, when everything new manager Mickey Callaway touched turned to gold.
That short-lived era back atop the New York baseball landscape only feels like it was eons ago for the Mets, who have far greater problems right now — both in quantity and importance — than simply flushing Matt Harvey from Flushing ever will correct.
They hardly were the only team in baseball dealing with injury concerns involving star-level players on Sunday, not on a day Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw also landed on the disabled list again and perennial All-Star catcher Yadier Molina underwent emergency surgery after getting drilled in the you-knowwhats Saturday night with a 102-mph fastball.
But the Mets also found themselves dealing again with the sort of double- whammy kick to the groin on Sunday their fans understandably have learned to view through a skeptical prism over the years.
Not only did the Mets reverse course and end up placing co-ace Jacob deGrom on the DL, but a familiar collective cringe was noticeable throughout Citi Field when $110 million slugger Yoenis Cespedes was forced to leave their home-stand sweeping 3-2 loss to the Rockies after the first inning with yet another leg injury.
Of course, to further underscore the notion that years of organizational miscommunication won’t be so simple to fully eradicate, the Mets announced the injury during the game as tightness in Cespedes’ right hip, before Callaway suggested in his postgame presser that the problem could be in either the “hip or groin” area, while the oft-hobbled outfielder ominously insisted afterward that the issue actually was with the right quad that troubled him throughout last season.
Whatever the case, Cespedes offered an “I don’t know, maybe” when asked during a terse, 75-second Q & A with the media if he might be available to play on Monday in Cincinnati.
As for deGrom, listen, there’s no reason to crush the Mets on that, not when the right decision all along was to skip him one start as a precaution following his hyperextended elbow scare last week.
Mets brass definitely arrived at that decision a tad late, however, as they could have had another bullpen arm available for the weekend had they shelved deGrom immediately.
As it is, deGrom’s 10-day DL stint can be backdated to the night he injured his elbow on a missed swing, and Monday still would be the only start he’d miss if he, in fact, does come back to pitch next Sunday in Philadelphia.
“The more and more we thought about it, it wasn’t worth the risk,” Callaway explained before the game. “We thought long and hard about this, Jacob deGrom is in a great spot with his throwing, he threw a bullpen (Saturday) totally pain-free, but the more and more we talked about this, we need to take care of the season and Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets.
“We sat down and talked about the welfare of our team moving forward. Not reacting to what’s been going on lately, which would have been a mistake.”
Clearly, what’s been going on lately with the Mets only continues to snowball by the day, with their 6-14 record since losing just once over the first dozen games featuring alarming back-to-back sweeps at home by Atlanta and Colorado.
Now a half-game ahead of fourth-place Washington in the NL East at 17-15, the Mets totaled 11 runs in the six losses, with seven coming in one game. They were blanked three times for the week and they didn’t register a hit after the second inning on Sunday until Adrian Gonzalez’s pinch-hit single in the ninth.
“It goes to show you how hot we really were in the beginning,” Todd Frazier said. “We’re still right in the thick of things…But nobody wants to get swept twice. At the end of the day, we just gotta keep going. Just keep fighting, keep pounding.”
With the DFA’d Harvey’s belongings cleared out and Zack Wheeler coming off an eight-run shelling, the last thing the Mets can afford would be any missed time by deGrom beyond Monday.
Especially with his co-ace still admittedly “fighting myself” over two consecutive six-inning starts, prompting Callaway to assess, “I don’t think we’ve seen the best of Noah Syndergaard yet.”
Syndergaard offered a similar take, saying, “I keep on getting those mediocre starts out of the way, so I can dominate in September, I guess.”
Speaking of dominance, the Yankees inserted Domingo German to replace injured Jordan Montgomery in their rotation on Sunday, and he became the first pitcher in MLB history (since at least 1908) to throw six no-hit innings with at least nine strikeouts in his first career start.
P.J. Conlon, meanwhile, sports a 6.75 ERA in five starts this season at Triple-A Las Vegas, but he needed to be summoned for his major-league debut to replace deGrom on Monday against the Reds.
“We’re struggling a little bit right now, but we can go on a run tomorrow just like we did to start the season,” Syndergaard said
That opening burst sure feels like a long time ago, in case anyone else is unable to even recall it happening.