There was so much for the Mets to be excited about on Friday, from the acquisition of Javier Baez, to Carlos Carrasco's debut, to the return of the black jerseys.
But the way it turned out, the news of Jacob deGrom being shut down for two weeks due to elbow inflammation took a lot of the air out of the balloon.
DeGrom threw a side session on Thursday, but then did not play catch on Friday, something he typically does after throwing a side.
After the Mets fell to the Cincinnati Reds 6-2 on Friday night, manger Luis Rojas spoke about the deGrom news and what it means for the team moving forward.
"I came here earlier to talk to you guys about what he was going to do today, and I knew he wasn’t throwing, but I didn’t have an idea that this was going to be so prolonged," Rojas explained. "He got checked by doctors here today and he was talking about some of the things that he was feeling, and they detected some inflammation in the elbow. So, shutting him down for two weeks. I mean, right now we’ve just got to focus on that, the two weeks for him and just see if everything heals now and see what we can do from there."
Mets acting GM Zack Scott said during the game that the Mets are probably looking at September at the earliest as a return timeline for deGrom, but Rojas admitted afterwards that today's news was very frustrating for the two-time Cy Young Award winner.
For now, all the Mets and deGrom can do is wait and see how he progresses over the next two weeks.
"To hear it today, it is concerning," Rojas said. "We thought everything was progressing okay, day-to-day, how we were approaching it, even though we didn’t have a target for him to pitch a certain day or anything. Now the focus goes to the two weeks that he’s going to have of no-throw, and let’s see how he responds. The importance of Jake here, you guys can say it’s immeasurable to be contributing for us, but we want Jake healthy. So this is the best thing, and we’ve got to do it, and he’s got to do it, and nobody’s as frustrated as he is right now, because he’s a guy who loves pitching for his team."