Anticipated Diaz debut arrives

PORT ST. LUCIE — Mets closer Edwin Diaz will make his first Grapefruit League appearance Monday when the Mets host the Marlins at Clover Park, manager Carlos Mendoza said.

Diaz, who missed all of 2023 with a torn patellar tendon sustained in a World Baseball Classic celebration last March, will enter after starter Tylor Megill and throw a maximum of 20 pitches in his latest step toward anchoring the Mets’ bullpen once again. “The fact that he gets to pitch in a major league game for the first time after a long year of rehab and all that, I think, is important for all of us, obviously for him,” Mendoza said Sunday before the Mets lost 3-2 to the Tigers, “and we’re excited to watch him pitch [Monday].”

Diaz has thrown in two games on the back fields this spring, including an intrasquad appearance Tuesday when he tossed 14 pitches and recorded outs against the three hitters he faced. He said afterward that he felt “100 percent ready,” and Diaz then followed by facing four additional hitters Friday.

“I think I will be the same guy,” Diaz said after a bullpen session last month. “I know my body and how I have to attack the hitters and how to make pitches … and what I have to do to be successful.”

The two-time All-Star recorded 32 saves and compiled a 1.31 ERA across 61 appearances in 2022, and that led to a five-year, $102 million deal last offseason which — until Josh Hader’s pact with the Astros in January — set the record for a reliever.

But Diaz hasn’t thrown a regular-season pitch since that deal. He was injured when celebrating a Puerto Rico win in March 2023 — a game where he recorded the final out and was the center of a celebration on the mound.

➤ Second baseman Jeff McNeil (left bicep soreness) took swings again Sunday, one day after he resumed hitting with dry swings and around 30 others off the tee. He was “feeling good,” Mendoza said.

➤ The Mets have one more week before deciding whether Kodai Senga, who’ll begin the season on the injured list with a shoulder strain and received a PRP injection at the end of February, can start throwing again.

“But as of right now, everything’s trending in the right direction,” Mendoza said.