The Mets have lost one of their best players weeks before Opening Day, as general manager Billy Eppler revealed that Edwin Diaz's knee injury suffered while celebrating Puerto Rico's World Baseball Classic victory is likely season ending.
Diaz, arguably the best closer in baseball last season, underwent knee surgery on Thursday, and will likely miss eight months. Now, the rest of the Mets will have to pick up the pieces with the start of the season quickly approaching.
"When I saw him on the ground, I thought, 'No, no, no. This can't be happening,'" Brandon Nimmo said. "Hoping he just twisted it or something. Hoping it was better than what it was looking…very unfortunate. Obviously felt bad about it for a while, and I feel terrible for Edwin. He has so much charisma around him and weight to him when he comes onto the field, and the trumpets are blaring. We enjoyed the heck out of it last year and what he did. I feel terrible for Edwin."
Justin Verlander also understands the weight of what his new team just lost, but he insists the Mets aren't changing their World Series expectations, even after losing one of the best bullpen arms in all of baseball.
"Obviously a tough blow," Verlander said. "One of the best closers in baseball, if not the best. Losing that is not easy. I don't think any team has gone through an entire season and hasn't had some sort of major blow…it's tough to have it at this time of the season when optimism is so high and everyone's ready to go…Hopefully at the end of the year, we can be standing there victorious and Edwin can be up there with us."
As for Nimmo, who did not play in the World Baseball Classic, stating his desire to focus on winning a World Series, he said that despite the nature of Diaz's injury, he doesn't believe there should be any criticism towards the WBC.
"No. This happens all the time," Nimmo said. "It's going to happen, it's playing games at a high level. The freak part of this is that it happened during the celebration."
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