No one feels sorry for Terry Collins.
Just remember, no matter how many Mets get injured, he’s still one of 30 major league managers and the other 29 counterparts aren’t going send him any sympathy cards.
However, you have to wonder if the 2016 Mets are jinxed.
“I don’t want it to sound like woe is me, but woe is us,” Collins said. “I said something yesterday to one of the coaches. I said, ‘Man, when do you think this is going to stop?’ Can things possibly get worse? And the next day they continue to get worse. It’s something you have to deal with. I know you can walk over on the other side of the field right now and they’re not going to feel sorry for us.”
The Mets announced today that after being examined by Dr. Robert Thompson in St. Louis that he has symptoms of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and is considering season ending surgery.
But there are other options, such as using nerve blockers, which could delay the surgery to after the season, but general manager Sandy Alderson said that it may not be the best option.
“It’s unclear how effective that would be or for how long,” Alderson said. “I do believe that surgery is probably inevitable and more a question of timing than anything else. So, obviously, to the extent that we’re backed up for a period of time, it begins potentially to encroach on 2017 as well.”
There are two things in play here. First will the Mets fare ok without the Dark Knight and second, if Harvey has surgery will he be okay in 2017.
Now without Harvey, the Mets will start looking at internal options. First up is Logan Verrett, who gets the ball on Saturday, but he is not anointed and the Mets will make a decision next week about the long term. Unlike past years, where there was a stud prospect in the minors to come up, the Mets lack that depth right now. The closest options are Gabriel Ynoa and Sean Gilmartin, but neither pitcher are in the class of Harvey.
Of course, they can look at the trade route, but that may hinder the club in bulking up in other positions.
“We’ll take a look at what’s there,” Alderson said. “We’re obviously always comparing what’s out there with what we have. So we’ll just have to see.”
The hope was to have Zack Wheeler slot right in and in spring training the Mets hoped he would just be about ready right now, but his setbacks put him a ways away and as Collins would say, the Mets have games to win now.
As for Harvey, the Mets hope the surgery will be a success like it was for Chris Young and come back better than ever. But when Collins was in Houston John Hudek had it too and wasn’t the same. So of course, there will be a concern with Harvey going under the knife.
“(Hudek) came back and pitched with it,” Collins said. “I don’t know if he was as effective as he was before he had it.
“Chris Young came back and had a good year in Seattle. So I think you can bounce back from it. But everybody is different, as we know. Anytime you have surgery, there’s a level of concern.”
That’s why this is so tricky.
But no one is shedding a tear for Collins, that’s for sure.
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