With Jose Quintana now on the shelf with a stress fracture in his rib, the Mets' potential depth starters are already preparing to fill in.
David Peterson is one of those top candidates, and he told reporters on Tuesday that this was an outcome he has been prepared for, especially when considering the state of the team's rotation.
"I would think it's known," Peterson said. "Look at everything. There's been a lot of attention as to the average age of our starting rotation as it stands. But you look at last year, when we didn't make it out of spring training with five healthy starters.
"The likelihood of those five guys making 30 starts each is highly unlikely. At some point, something's gonna happen. We saw that last year, and you see it every year. It was just about coming in, doing my work, and contributing in any way I can."
Justin Verlander just turned 40 years old, while Max Scherzer will turn 39 this summer. Carlos Carrasco is 35, while Kodai Senga is the youngest arm in the rotation at 30. Scherzer has shown signs of losing steam down the stretch of each of the last two seasons, while Carrasco has had some injury problems of his own since coming to New York. So the likes of Peterson and Tylor Megill should remain ready, and could be needed sooner than expected given Quintana's injury.
The Mets also reportedly plan to use a six-man rotation to protect their aging arms at points throughout this season, and could be forced to dig deeper down the depth chart for those stretches if there are injuries to those veteran arms.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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