The Mets pitching staff faced all kinds of challenges in Monday’s loss to the Phillies, as both starter Taijuan Walker and reliever Trevor May had to leave the game with injury.
Walker, who left his final spring training outing due to soreness in his surgically-repaired knee, felt shoulder irritation and had to exit the game after just two innings. Before that, Walker had pitched two perfect frames, capped off by a strikeout of Didi Gregorius.
“I threw a slider and felt a little irritated,” Walker said. “Felt sore, finished the inning in the second and just didn’t feel right. So I came out just to be safe. It’s already feeling better now…I feel pretty good about it.”
David Peterson came on in emergency relief and gave New York everything it could have asked four with four solid innings, and May was pulled in the eighth after a full inning of work. The bullpen behind May imploded and coughed up a lead for the second straight night after May exited with arm fatigue, though, like Walker, he didn’t sound too concerned.
“Beginning of the year usually, I work through some tricep/bicep soreness,” May said. “It’s a normal thing for me. I’ve been treating it pretty heavily the last week or so…it’s my version of dead arm a little bit. I was feeling pretty good recently…I went out there an felt fine in the first inning, and when you sit, it’s cold outside, you have to fin a way to fire it back up.
“There was so pitch or sharp pain or something ‘went.’ That’s all stuff I’ve felt before.”
Buck Showalter also said he had heard optimistic reports about his two pitchers, but wants to wait until he gets the MRI results on Tuesday.
“They’re both gonna get an MRI and see what we’re dealing with,” Showalter said. “Hearing it described, I don’t want to start playing doctor, but we’ll get some pictures and let the people who do that for a living tell us. I heard some good things from them afterwards, but you don’t really know until you let them get in there and look at it.”
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