Another game, another day where the Mets are licking their wounds on the injury front.
The Mets fell to the Houston Astros 5-3 in the finale of a short-two games series in south Texas, a series Houston swept, but for the Mets the headline has to be the ongoing health issues for its pitching staff.
Carlos Carrasco was hit hard by the Astros giving up four runs in the bottom of the first inning before even recording an out. Carrasco would settle down a bit after giving up bombs to Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez to get through the first and second innings, but he would leave in the third inning with lower back tightness.
The injury marks the fourth Mets starting pitcher with an injury this year. Both Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom are on the mend and should be back soon. Scherzer could be back in the Mets rotation as soon as Sunday. deGrom might be back in late July/early August.
The other starter to go down with an injury is Tylor Megill who is on his second stint on the Injury List after sustaining a right shoulder strain last week against Milwaukee.
If Carrasco is out a significant amount of time it will be very interesting to see how the Mets try to manage their rotation.
"The plan" is for Max Scherzer to meet the Mets in Miami, but Buck Showalter will confirm with Billy Eppler: pic.twitter.com/N0o4L9bJ0e
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 22, 2022
Of course this all depends on whether Sherzer is ready to go Sunday in Miami. If he is, they could simply keep both David Peterson and Trevor Williams in the starting rotation. If Scherzer needs to wait until next week when the Mets are back at Citi Field to make his Mets return, they’ll have to get creative and call someone from Triple-A.
Carlos Carrasco provides an update with how he's feeling: pic.twitter.com/hgQs2akQhd
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 22, 2022
On top of that the Mets are hoping that catcher James McCann, who has been out since late April with a wrist injury is ready to go on Friday in Miami. Second baseman Jeff McNeil is still day-to-day with a hamstring.
The only good news to come out of Wednesday’s 5-3 loss to Houston was the effort. The Mets did all they could to comeback and steal this one from Houston. The bullpen was fabulous. Yoan Lopez, Tommy Hunter, Julio Rodriguez and Edwin Diaz combined to hold the Astros to just three hits over the final 5-2/3 innings of work.
In fact, Yordan Alvarez who hit two huge homers off of Carrasco, went 0-for-2 against the Mets bullpen.
The Mets did have a great opportunity to strike with the bases loaded in the sixth inning, having already scored two runs in the inning to cut the deficit to 5-3. However Eduardo Escobar popped out softly to third and Dom Smith struck out swinging to end the threat.
The Mets face the Marlins on Friday.