Mets rotation suffers two more blows
Marcus Stroman has a sore hip, Michael Conforto’s return was delayed due to coronavirus concerns and Joey Lucchesi is out for the season.
The hits just keep on coming for the injury-riddled New York Mets.
Stroman, the team’s most durable starting pitcher this season, exited Tuesday night’s outing against Atlanta in the second inning because of an aching left hip.
Conforto is on deck to come off the injured list, but the right fielder wasn’t activated Tuesday after Triple-A Syracuse’s scheduled game was postponed to allow for more COVID-19 testing and contact tracing within the organization. Conforto spent last weekend on a rehab assignment with Syracuse, so the Mets said they decided not to reinstate him Tuesday “out of an abundance of caution.”
The team said Conforto tested negative Tuesday night and it plans to activate him before today’s game against the Braves. He has been sidelined since straining his right hamstring on May 16.
Lucchesi, however, is headed for Tommy John surgery, the Mets confirmed. The lefthander had solidified a spot at the back of the rotation by posting a 1.19 ERA over his previous five starts. He is scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday. BUXTON’S BAD LUCK CONTINUES>> The glimpses of Byron Buxton’s game-changing, worth-the-admission skills have grown broader over the last three years as the Minnesota Twins center fielder has blossomed with the bat to match his superior work with the glove.
Those bursts of dominance just keep getting interrupted, though. Buxton has landed on the injured list yet again after another bout with bad luck.
In his third game back after a 39-game absence to a strained right hip, Buxton was hit on the left hand by a pitch from Cincinnati’s Tyler Mahle on Monday night and broke a bone in his pinky finger. He should miss about a month.
Buxton is on the injured list for the 11th time since his debut with the Twins in 2015 — and the 15th time as a professional since they drafted him with the second overall pick in 2012. TORONTO’S MANOAH SUSPENDED >> Toronto Blue Jays rookie Alek Manoah was suspended for five games and fined by Major League Baseball senior vice president Michael Hill, who concluded the right-hander intentional threw at Maikel Franco last weekend.
Manoah appealed the discipline and the ban will be delayed until after the appeals process.
Manoah, making his fifth major league start, gave up consecutive homers to Ryan Mountcastle and DJ Stewart in a five-pitch span of the fourth inning last Saturday, his third and fourth homers allowed in the game. Manoah then hit Franco on the left shoulder with his next pitch. ZOBRIST SUES MINISTER >> Ben Zobrist, the former Chicago Cubs utility player and 2016 World Series MVP, filed a lawsuit accusing his former minister of having a sexual relationship with his wife, Julianna, and defrauding Zobrist’s charity foundation.
The lawsuit against Byron Yawn, CEO of the Nashvillearea counseling firm Forrest Crain and Co., seeks $6 million in punitive and compensatory damages through a jury trial.
According to the complaint, Yawn, while acting as the Zobrists’ marital counselor and executive director of Zobrist’s charity, “usurped the ministerial-counselor role, violated and betrayed the confidence entrusted to him by the plaintiff, breached his fiduciary duty owed to the plaintiff and deceitfully used his access as counselor to engage in an inappropriate sexual relationship with the plaintiff’s wife.”