Seth Lugo’s latest rehab outing was pushed back from Friday to Saturday due to the weather, but it may end up being his last one.
Mets manager Luis Rojas said prior to Saturday’s Mets-Braves game that the plan is still for Lugo to be activated off the 60-day injured list as soon as he is eligible on Monday, despite the fact that he has yet to make back-to-back outings as desired.
“We’ll see if he can do two innings tonight; he hasn’t done the back-to-back, which we want him to do, but the plan is to activate him Monday as of now,” Rojas said. “We’ll take the two inning outing, that’ll tell us a lot about where his arm is, and then hopefully he’ll be back with us.”
The Triple-A Syracuse Mets were rained out in Rochester on Friday, so Lugo is expected to appear at some point in Saturday’s doubleheader, possibly as the TBD “starter” in Game 2. So far, he has made three rehab outings – two with Syracuse and one at Low-A St. Lucie – and allowed one earned run over 3 1/3 innings.
The Mets’ bullpen has been strong as of late, but Lugo’s ability to give length will be important at a time where the Mets are still missing Carlos Carrasco, just saw Noah Syndergaard have a setback in his rehab, and placed depth starter Jordan Yamamoto on the injured list.
“He brings a ton of value,” Rojas said. “He’ll have a role in our bullpen that I don’t think anyone has had yet. Guys have fallen into it, but his ability to throw two innings at any point in a game is very valuable.
He can do it a lot, with the different pitch mix he offers, so that’s going to add a lot of value to us, and he’ll keep the guys we’ve been using a lot even fresher.”
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