Winners in six of their last eight games, a come-from-behind triumph on Wednesday night in which they scored eight unanswered runs to take a series victory away from the defending World Series-winning Chicago Cubs — and still, the Mets are running into problems.
The Mets’ middle infield is officially gone. After shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera hit the 10-day disabled list with a sprained thumb, Neil Walker went down like he was shot after trying to leg out a bunt for a hit on Wednesday night. He gripped the back of his hamstring on his way to first before falling to the ground.
The Mets were oh, so descriptive in calling it a “leg injury,” at the time. An MRI revealed on Thursday that he suffered a partial hamstring tear and was put on the 10-day DL.
Then there’s Harvey.
The right-hander was tagged for four runs on five hits, including three home runs. But it was his velocity, or lack thereof, that was the largest issue.
Harvey could not get his fastball over 90 mph and was pulled after just four innings.
The reason? A tired arm … after just 70.1 innings thrown this year. After meeting with team doctors on Thursday, it was discovered that Harvey has a “stress injury to the scapula bone in the right shoulder,” per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, and will miss “a couple weeks.”
In case you forgot (which is hard to do), Harvey is coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery that required the removal of one of his ribs along with muscles in his neck and chest last season. It cut his 2016 season short in July.
His return has been a difficult one to watch, though. This year he is 4-3 with a 5.25 ERA and 16 home runs allowed. He surrendered a career-high 18 round trippers in 2015, but that was in 189.1 innings. Harvey’s not even halfway there yet this year.
If his on-field issues weren’t enough, Harvey also picked up a three-game suspension for going out and partying so hard on Cinco de Mayo that he could not show up to the ballpark the following afternoon.
