New York Mets: Deja vu... The starting rotation is suffering from injuries

Just like last season, the New York Mets’ starting rotation is being ravaged by injuries. Except this year, Terry Collins’ team doesn’t seem to have many reinforcements on the way.

It’s been a rough past couple months for New York Mets starting pitching. After losing Steven Matz and Seth Lugo before the 2017 MLB season even started, the baseball gods have continued to be unforgiving to Terry Collins‘ squad.

Now, in addition to these two productive starters, the Mets just learned that they would be without their ace Noah Syndergaard for at least the next 10 days with him on the disabled list, and most likely much more. According to Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News, “Syndergaard suffered a partially torn right lat muscle.” Ackert passed along some info from Mets general manager Sandy Alderson about the duration of the injury.

“I don’t think this period is going to be measured in days, think it’s going to be measured in weeks,” the Mets GM said. “It’s going to be a considerable amount of time.”

This is rather grim news for a Mets fanbase that thought they may get some good karma after making their way to the playoffs last season, despite key injuries to multiple starting pitchers.

Despite Matz and Lugo no longer being in their opening roster plans, the Mets still figured that their starting rotation would be a strength. With Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom headlining the group, in addition to high-potential hurlers in Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler backing them up, it looked as if the Mets would overcome this slight hurdle in stride. Heck, Robert Gsellman was the number-five, and he was spectacular as the surprise contributor of the 2016 ball club.

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Now, the Mets seem to be in much worse position than they were at the end of last season.

Although both Matz and Lugo have resumed throwing, Alderson passed along to Rich Greco of NJ.com that it would “take a while” before both return to action. This leaves just deGrom and Harvey as the lone starters that really have a major league track record.

Gsellman was lights-out toward the end of last year, but he has struggled out of the gate, pitching to a 6.75 ERA in five starts. His hit, walk, strikeout and home run rates have all gone up, and overall the 23-year-old doesn’t look like the pitcher he was in 2016.

On a bright note, the pitcher most people probably thought would suffer from injuries at some point, Zack Wheeler, has remained on the field. However, it’s known that Wheeler will be on some sort of innings limit, and therefore the team should not rely on him to be as available as he is now come later in the season or even in the middle part of the year given his injury troubles.

So where does this leave the Mets moving forward? Well, in short, it doesn’t look too good, at least for the near future.

The Mets have announced that they will be calling up minor leaguer Rafaelo Montero to make a spot start on Friday. He’s not expected to be a difference maker on the mound given his struggles in the major leagues to this point and his overall average stat line as a member of the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate.

New York also has Sean Gilmartin available in the bullpen to be an option for the starting rotation if Montero doesn’t hold his own. Still, neither pitcher should give Mets fans confidence that they will be able to hold down the fort while their other starters recover from injuries.

At this point, the trade market really hasn’t developed. The front office could try to wait it out until the starting pitching market picks up to deal for a back-end of the rotation guy, but that’s not the smart move at this point. They could also try to pry a capable minor leaguer from an organization with some depth to help salvage the situation. With the struggles of Gsellman and the volatility of Harvey and Wheeler, the Mets know they are a few horrible moments away from falling out of the NL East race altogether.

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It would be wise to at least check out free agent pitchers, but obviously that market is extremely bare. The best talent available in that market are veterans Doug Fister, Colby Lewis and Tim Lincecum. One of these hurlers could be a decent pickup as a fill-in type guy that the Mets need. Still, these pitchers would need to have a couple of weeks to warm up with all the other questions surrounding them.

All in all, the Mets are in an unenviable position that has no real answer at this time. Part of the challenge of a baseball season is dealing with the injuries that pop up, as many other clubs are doing with the rash of injuries around the league right now.

However, the Mets have shown the ability to win despite injury. But I’m personally not as confident they have the roster to do it two years in a row. Best bet, New York does enough to stay above water until they get back what they have lost early in the season. However, just as real of a scenario would be if these injuries derail the Mets’ season before it even really started.

The key will be deGrom pitching like the guy he’s been over the last few years, with the trio of Gsellman, Harvey and Wheeler finding some consistency to power through this rough patch, because any pitcher they bring to fill in the gap will not be a savior like Gsellman and Lugo were in 2016.

Next: Houston has a problem at the hot corner

Do the Mets have enough talent/options in order to remain in the playoff hunt throughout the 2017 season? What should be the team’s next move? Let us know in the comment section below.

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