7:25pm: The Mets have announced that Matz has a partial tear of his lat muscle on his left side. He will be shut down for three weeks, then be reexamined. Marc Carig of Newsday has tweeted the text of the Mets’ announcement.
7:08pm: Matz’ injury is “not serious,” a source tells ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin (on Twitter). It does appear, however, that the Mets will skip Matz’s next turn in the rotation.
6:51pm: Mets starting pitcher Steven Matz has a lat injury and will miss several weeks or more, Andy Martino of New York Daily News tweets. The Mets were using a six-man rotation, an arrangement with which ace Matt Harvey had already expressed displeasure, so they will presumably just go back to five.
Matz entered the season as a highly regarded pitching prospect and only enhanced that status with 90 1/3 dominant innings for Triple-A Las Vegas — he posted a 2.19 ERA, 9.4 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in a notoriously difficult environment for pitchers. He made his big-league debut June 28 and allowed two runs in 7 2/3 while firing mid-90s fastballs and going 3-for-3 at the plate in a Mets win. He then pitched six shutout innings and struck out eight last Sunday.
Had Matz remained healthy, he might have met resistance at some point, and the Mets clearly have the depth to withstand a pitching injury. Losing a promising rookie for a significant period of time is, however, a blow to the Mets, who remain in the hunt for both the NL East and the Wild Card.
Jeez, could the Mets have any more injuries? Wheeler, d’Arnaud, Wright, Murphy, Parnell, Herrera (and I’m sure there are others) have missed all or significant portions of the season due to injury. Now Matz. Plus, Lagares has been playing hurt for quite some time and may end up needing TJ surgery. I know every team has injuries, but this seems like a lot.
This also means that Niese isn’t going anywhere. Not that he’d bring back a lot, but this sort of seals it.
The Nats have Werth, Span, Zimmerman, Strasburg, and and their best player Rendon out, quit crying, and Fister just came back.
Rendon is better than harper? Lol
He was last year, not this year, he is better than anyone on the Mets team.
Who’s crying? I literally said that every team has injuries. No need to be a jerk about it. But for the record, the Mets two best hitters have barely played this year. Wright and d’Arnaud have played in a combined 27 games. Zim and Span have played nearly 60 each. Wheeler would have been a #3 starter. The Mets have been crushed with injuries.
Sorry, I was being a jerk, Wright and d’Arnaud have been injury prone. Time to get rid of Sandy. Harvey, Matz, and d’ Grom were all Omar’s signing and so was Dickey who got the Mets d’Araud and Syndergaard., and then theirs Beltran who got you Wheeler. Time to bring in DiPoto.
This is why you build a team with position players first like the Cubs, pitching is outlier!
That’s why they’re leading the MLB leaders in ERA, the St. Louis Cardinals, right?
The only reason the Mets are above .500 is because of how deep their pitching is. Not sure what your point is.
Hes saying every year one of these starters will get hurt.
My point is your a better off building a team with position players first like the Cubs and then add the pitching. The pitching is the most important part of the team, but it is also the most unpredictable. The chances of all that young unproven pitching staying healthy for 5 years is 0%.
The fact that pitching is fragile exactly underscores how important it is to have depth. The pitching is the only reason they’re still in it.
If they added a bat or two, they’d be doing very well. Same thing but flipped. You can build a team with position players and then add pitching or you can build a team with pitching and then add position players. There’s not one exact blueprint to winning a championship. I’ll refer you to the Giants as a pitching-first team that has won championships.
And you keep mentioning the Cubs, but they haven’t actually won anything yet. Pump the brakes.
Tears are never a good thing, I don’t see him pitching again any time soon. Guess the Cubs dodged the (made up) bullet of ignoring all the constant “Met’s Pitching to the Cubs for Russell/Baez/Castro, etc.”
There was never really anything there, though. Just banter from everyone except the Mets and Cubs organization.
Exactly my point.
All teams are shooting for a balanced team like the Cardinals. The Mets other major problem is that they wont spend money to build their team. It is tough to watch such great young pitching go to waist.
I’m not a mets fan, but the mets have been willing to spend the money. It’s just each time they do, it blows up in their face to varying degrees…. Granderson, Jason bay, Johan Santana, bobby Bonilla (sorry had to throw that one in there), cuddyer, Beltran, gary Matthews jr., Carlos Delgado….
If I had a track history like that with upper tier free agents, I’d be a bit leery about spending money too. I’d try to figure out another way to go about building a team..
Mets just lost their best hitter for 3 weeks.
Tough break again, would like to see it taken care of rather than try to run him out there with a nagging injury when their realistic chance to get in the playoffs is getting tougher, ala Pedro Martinez 2005.
It’s too bad about Matz, he was bringing some juice to the team.
Hart has done a great job retooling the Braves, I see them making a run at the playoffs not the Mets. They have a more balanced team and Hart will make improvements at any time. They will pass the Mets in the standings. The Cubs will be hard to beat for the second wild card because Hoyer will also make moves to improve; but they do have the Cardinals in their division.
You seem pretty confident for a team that’s been worse than the Mets all year with essentially only one injury that has hampered them. Once the Mets get their players back, and hopefully acquire a bat, I don’t see the Braves contending with them. When(if) healthy, the only possible aspect of the game that the Braves might have an advantage over the Mets is defense.
The Mets were the only MLB team in the Playoff hunt to get better in July. The got an effective Bobby Parnell and have Mejia back. They got two 8th inning guys. If they can get a stud lefty in the pen, that would help greatly. I see Chapman from the Reds as a possibility.
The Mets should not wast their time going after a lefty hitter such as Jay Bruce. The Mets are too left handed at the top of the lineup with Murphy, Duda and Granderson. The Mets need a righty bat and the cure would be a left fielder with pop. Good luck finding one. Let’s put the dreams aside of Frazier or Cruz coming to the Mets. It isn’t happening as both are not being traded this year.
Ben Zobrist is a nice role player but if the Mets want to get a backup middle infielder they can bring back Ty Wigginton. Don’t over pay for role players. The best I would offer is Montero “As Is.”
The best the Mets can realistically do is acquire a shortstop who can filed and hit for average. That’s the guy to target with Tejada being the backup.
Earlier in the year a Chapman and Phillips deal would have made sense when Murphy was on the DL. Phillips has since been devalued and Murphy is back.