New York Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler has experienced a setback in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. According to a Tuesday report by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, Wheeler has felt “discomfort” in his elbow and won’t be throwing a scheduled simulated inning this week.
Wheeler underwent Tommy John surgery in March of 2015 when he tore his UCL. He hasn’t appeared on the mound for the Mets since September of 2014.
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Discomfort Shouldn’t Stall Wheeler’s Return
Tuesday, June 21
DiComo added that Wheeler will fly to New York on Wednesday and be examined by team doctors, though the Mets don’t believe this is a “serious” concern.
If this discomfort proves to be nothing, then Wheeler should still be on track for a return in early July—the timetable Mike Puma of the New York Post reported in May.
Before his injury, the 26-year-old Wheeler was yet another young, promising arm in a New York pitching rotation set to take the league by storm.
Unfortunately for the Mets, they have been unable to get Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Wheeler all in the rotation at the same time.
As Wheeler compiled an 18-16 record with subpar Mets teams from 2013-2014, Harvey had to undergo Tommy John surgery, which kept him out for the entire 2014 season.
During that Harvey-less year, deGrom was spinning together a National League Rookie of the Year campaign, while Matz and Syndergaard weren’t even in the major leagues with the team. Wheeler, on the other hand, was looked upon as a top-end starter, going 11-11 with a 3.54 ERA and 185 strikeouts in 187.1 innings.
Even though the numbers didn’t jump off the page, Wheeler showed flashes of being a major league ace by winning nine of his final 13 decisions with a fastball that lived in the high 90s and a devastating curveball that was almost 20 mph slower, per FanGraphs.
An extended absence hasn’t been easy for Wheeler, though he’s put his faith in the recovery process that helped Harvey get back on the field and helped the Mets win the National League pennant in 2015, per Tim Rohan of the New York Times: “You see all these guys coming back from it doing well. You’ve just got to trust it.”
It’s hard to say the Mets have missed Wheeler all this time given the depth of their pitching rotation. But a healthy Wheeler in a New York starting rotation that is second in the majors with 3.43 runs allowed per game could make the Mets defense even more unstoppable.
Given that the Mets offense is third-worst in the league with 3.68 runs scored per game, his return could only help a team that is 5.5 games behind the Washington Nationals for the NL East lead.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless noted otherwise.
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