The Mets got Jeff McNeil back on Monday, and Jacob deGrom made it cleanly through five fabulous innings…but they got three pieces of bad news on the pitching front as well.
The first came when the reciprocal move for activating McNeil was placing Robert Gsellman on the 10-day injured list with a right lat strain, and during Game 1 of the doubleheader, SNY's Steve Gelbs confirmed that the strain was in fact a tear, and Gsellman is expected to miss at least six-to-eight weeks.
"We'll see how long it is," Mets manager Luis Rojas said. "He's on the 10-day IL right now."
In between games of the doubleheader, the Mets then placed RHP Jeurys Familia on the injured list with a right hip impingement, and Rojas suspected something might be wrong looking at Familia's outing on Sunday even though the righty didn't say anything until Monday.
"It's something he told the trainers about today, but he's apparently been trying to pitch through it," Rojas said. "I noticed even yesterday, the sinker he threw to Kyle Schwarber for the homer moved more laterally than vertically, and was more over the middle of the plate. We've seen that when he's right this year, he's nasty, and I don't know if that was because of the hip, but I think he did the right thing voicing this. Let's see if we can get this right for him and see if he can meet us in 10 days or so."
And then the big blow during Game 2: an MRI on LHP Joey Lucchesi's left elbow revealed a "significant tear" in his UCL, and while he will get a second opinion, it seems that he's headed for Tommy John surgery that might wipe out the rest of 2021 and potentially all of 2022.
"Even though that's the first thing that comes to mind about having the surgery, he wanted, and we wanted, to hear a second opinion on it. That's the plan right now. We'll get a second opinion on it and then we'll see if this is something that can be treated, or is this something that will need the actual surgery," Rojas said. "It's hard, it's a big loss for us. He's a talented young kid that I think is just getting better every time he goes out there. Let's see what comes out of this, the second opinion I think will let us know for sure what the decision is gonna be."
The Mets recalled RHP Yennsy Diaz, who had been sent to Triple-A on Sunday, to replace Familia between games, and can potentially replace Lucchesi in the rotation with Jerad Eickhoff, who threw four scoreless innings in Game 2. The Mets do also have No. 10 prospect Thomas Szapucki on the 40-man roster at Triple-A, and could keep LHP Stephen Tarpley, who was called up as the 27th man for Monday's doubleheader, to help fill the bullpen.
"It's always unfortunate when you lose two important guys from your bullpen. In different roles, they've been crucial for us. It's a tough day losing those two guys. They've been throwing the ball well for us," Rojas said of Familia and Gsellman.
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