By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-long-will-degrom-be-elbowed-aside.htmlThe Mets need this about as badly as the Incredible Hulk needs actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances. The one durable starting pitcher they had in 2017, and the best one they've had this season thus far, had to leave his start Wednesday night after hyperextending his right elbow . . . while taking a turn at the plate.
Nobody knows just yet whether Jacob deGrom is looking at something worse, but nobody's kidding themselves, either.
The righthanded former Rookie of the Year was perhaps the principal reason why the Mets broke out of the season gates like Secretariat. But the bullpen getting more work than it should have early enough, other starters not named Noah Syndergaard pitching like, well, starters not named Noah Syndergaard, and hitters running the gamut from inconsistent to invisible, put the Mets on shaky ground entering Wednesday night's round with the young and apparently hungrier-than-they-were-supposed-to-be Braves.
On Tuesday, Syndergaard got torn unusually for three runs in the first before he settled down and remembered who he was; the Mets still couldn't do a thing against Braves rookie Michael Soroka. deGrom was pitching a small masterpiece Wednesday night until he came out of the game in the fourth, working that inning even after he felt something wrong in the right elbow on a swinging strikeout at the plate to open the third. (For the record, deGrom bats lefthanded.)
He'd struck out six and kept the Braves to a pair of singles with nothing else to show for them. But he looked very visibly upset as he walked off the mound after his fourth inning's work. When a guy with a 1.87 ERA looks like that as he's about to come out of a game he was owning, you'd better believe every Met in creation wanted to reach for the antacids.
Not just because the prospect of losing deGrom for a lengthy disabled list stay is shattering enough. The Mets who looked like world beaters for most of April have looked extremely vulnerable in the past couple of weeks. And the Braves were distinctly disinclined to show mercy when they had a chance to snatch first place in the National League East Wednesday night.
Paul Sewald's first inning of relief was textbook. He sandwiched a line out to shortstop between two strikeouts. The next inning, he flunked the test, sandwiching two outs between a leadoff double and an RBI single. The inning after that, he was sent to the principal's office thanks to a two-out double and an immediate two-run homer.
He'd yield to Robert Gsellman, who opened the season looking like a stellar relief option but lately has looked like an arsonist. And Gsellman got himself sent home with notes to his parents thanks to an RBI double, a two-run homer, and a solo jack right on top of the two-shot. Nobody cared that AJ Ramos worked a spotless ninth with the Braves finishing off a 7-0 win.
Meanwhile, the Mets' continuing futility at the plate resulted in Sean Newcomb and two relievers manhandling them to the tune of three measly hits, one walk, and ten strikeouts (eight by Newcomb in seven innings), and just about every Met going to the plate looked as though he'd fashioned his bat from papier mache.
And deGrom going down for who knows how long simply resurrects all over again the frightening thought that, no matter how they work and no matter how they revamp their team medical apparatus (which is exactly what they did after last season ended), the Mets and young pitching together compare to nitroglicerin. The nitro comes out looking better and less combustible.
Consider:
* Matt Harvey's superb 2013 ending in a blown-out elbow and a missed season to follow.
* Zack Wheeler tearing an elbow ligament in 2015 spring training and losing two seasons to Tommy John surgery.
* Harvey suffering thoracic outlet syndrome during 2016, missing the rest of the season, and looking like the Light Joker instead of the Dark Knight, only the jokes aren't all that funny as Harvey still seems somewhere between lost and a little reckless even as he's been moved to the bullpen.
* Syndergaard blowing off a scheduled MRI, then getting pasted by the Nationals in his next start, then turning up with a lat injury that put paid to his 2017 after only five starts.
* Wheeler turning up with biceps tendinitis and an early end to his season last July.
* Steven Matz---About the only thing that hasn't happened to Matz every couple of months is a dog bite.
The Mets have been there before. Remember Generation K in the mid-1990s? Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher, Paul Wilson. Every one of them overworked in the minors; every one of them with shoulder and elbow issues; they ended up being nicknamed by some wags the Tommy John Trio. Only Isringhausen managed a serviceable career, after he converted to relief pitching and racked up 300 saves before finally retiring.
And Harvey, deGrom, Matz, and Wheeler could be called the Tommy John Quartet---all four had the procedure early in their careers.
deGrom's MRI result should be known some time Thursday. (He left the Mets clubhouse swiftly enough after he came out of the game to go for one.) Enough observers also want to know why manager Mickey Callaway, a former pitching coach, let deGrom go back out to pitch the fourth after that fateful swinging strikeout at the plate.
"[He] didn't have any issues throwing," the skipper said after the game. But when he ended the fourth, his bicep felt guilty of attempted murder. A crime deGrom may be tempted to commit if his MRI tells him he's in for longer than a couple of starts worth of the disabled list. A crime Met fans may be tempted to commit if his MRI tells him that, while they scream blue murder over the new manager letting him pitch in any kind of pain.
"[W]hen all is said and done," Callaway added, "we can't sit here worrying about it and crying about it. Somebody is going to have to step up if we get some bad news."
Like whom? Harvey's been shuffled to the bullpen because he's lost it as a starter; he can give the innings but he hasn't yet figured out how to work consistently as a no-longer-power-pitcher. Gsellman was a starter last year and a terribly inconsistent one at that; until the last few days he looked better as a reliever. Rookie Corey Oswalt has potential but you have to worry about throwing him to the wolf packs too soon.
deGrom came to spring training with his once-formidable broom of hair cropped to comparative military length. Until Wednesday night he was playing a reverse Samson, seeming only strengthened by losing all that hair. Depending on the MRI result and the disabled list spell, he might be tempted to grow that broom back.
--------------------------------------------------------
@Polly Ticks @Machiavelli @Cyber Liberty @Slip18 @Bigun @Right_in_Virginia @truth_seeker @DCPatriot @Mom MD @musiclady @TomSea @catfish1957 @GrouchoTex @Freya @flowers @WarmPotato