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Steven Matz’s injured elbow could hurt the Mets
Thursday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes the Mets’ Matz injury, Max Scherzer’s record night, and Bryce Harper’s suspension slash day off.
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
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The Mets’ rotation is great, but cracks are starting to show. Matt Harvey hasn’t looked himself and has a 4.50 ERA over his seven starts, averaging just 5 2/3 innings per outing while allowing over 10 hits per nine. Bartolo Colon has been great, so don’t take this to mean those cracks are showing in him, but he’s also 43 years old and has looked like an ace so far. You can’t count out Bartolo, but you don’t want to count on him too much, either, not after consecutive below-average campaigns.
The most worrisome crack might be Steven Matz, though: Matz recovered from a poor start to the season and has been lights-out since, posting a 1.09 ERA from his second appearance of the year onward. Now, he’s set to miss his next scheduled start due to elbow soreness, with an MRI coming with the Mets’ return to New York. This could just be a little flare up, the kind of thing a turn or two off from the rotation could fix. If it’s something worse, though, then the Mets are going to have a tougher time in the NL East given how good the Nationals look.
You don’t want to overreact to elbow soreness, but given Matz has already had Tommy John surgery once, you also can’t help but worry something is amiss. The Mets wouldn’t be doomed if they were to lose Matz, talented as he is, for an extended period of time. However, if Matz is out and Harvey doesn’t bounce back and Colon goes back to pitching like someone nearing their mid-40s, well, you can see how that would cause problems in a hurry. At least the Mets can hit this year, unlike last summer, so this time, the lineup would just have to carry the team through the darker times.
- Or, Noah Syndergaard will just have to do everything, as he did on Wednesday when he hit two homers in the same start he limited the Dodgers to two runs over eight innings.
- Max Scherzer tied the MLB record with 20 strikeouts on Wednesday. He had a chance at 21, but Tigers' catcher James McCann ended the game with a ground out.
- Here is the good (and bad) of Jonathan Lucroy's 2016 season.
- Bryce Harper was suspended one game for dropping an f-bomb on an umpire, but he's appealing the suspension, which most likely means he'll drop it once it's his turn for a scheduled day off.
- If the Braves were a frozen hamburger patty, they'd be recalled.
- A stadium ad reminded the Cardinals their city lost the Rams to Los Angeles. That's pretty cold, Angels.
- The White Sox bullpen catcher was just lounging around before casually catching this home run barehanded.
- Stephen Strasburg won't be the last of the major pitcher extensions. Here are five starters who could eventually be in line for similar life-changing deals.
- The Red Sox are under investigation for their international signings, as they might have moved some money around between prospects in order to get around the limits imposed on their spending.
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