Prior to Wednesday’s matchup with the Dodgers in Los Angeles, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza gave updates on a number of injured players…
Sean Manaea’s first rehab start set
The Mets skipper revealed when Manaea will finally get some game action after a months-long recovery process from a strained right oblique.
Mendoza said that Manaea is scheduled to have his first rehab start on Friday with High-A Brooklyn. The Cyclones are on the road, but Manaea will appear in that game with the expectation to have two ups and 35 pitches or so.
Manaea threw 29 pitches in a live bullpen that “went well” earlier this week and the Mets starter recovered well and is not ready for the ramp up until he returns to the Mets rotation.
Frankie Montas’ next step unclear
Montas has had a few rehab outings as the veteran right-hander recovers from a lat strain, and his latest came Tuesday with Triple-A. It was the first rehab start for Montas in Syracuse and he was not effective across his four-plus innings of work.
Mendoza was asked about Montas and the Mets skipper said they have to wait to see how he recovers from his latest start but he did not know how many rehab starts his pitcher will need. He did say they wanted to continue to build him up, but they have 20 days until his rehab assignment is officially completed, and they will have to revisit then.
In Tuesday’s start, Montas threw 61 pitches (43 strikes) but allowed six hits, three for home runs.
Good news on Mark Vientos
The Mets placed Vientos on the 10-day IL on Tuesday with a hamstring strain but Mendoza provided a positive update on the young slugger.
“We got relatively good news. It’s a low-grade strain,” he said. “Going to treat it for the next 10-14 days until he’s symptom-free and then ramp him back up. Good news there.”
Vientos hit a slow grounder to the left side in extra innings of Monday’s game but collapsed running up the first base line and stayed down for a bit. He eventually got back up and grabbed his hamstring as he made his way to the dugout. After the game, Mendoza said the injury “didn’t look good” so he was pleasantly surprised by the results of the testing on Vientos.
“You never know, guy goes down the way he did. You kinda expect the worst,” Mendoza said. “Once he went through all the testing, talking to the trainers – You hate to see him go down at any time, the fact that it’s low-grade, it’s good news.”
Vientos will rest for a minimum of 10 days and see if he’s symptom-free before he starts baseball activities and then he will be ramped back up.
In the meantime, prospect Ronny Mauricio was called up and is seeing time at third base while Brett Baty, Luisangel Acuna and Jeff McNeil split time at second.
Read the full article here