2017 has been a season to forget for the New York Mets.
No member of the New York Mets can catch a break. Saturday, after blasting a grand slam in game one of New York’s doubleheader against the Houston Astros, Mets infielder Wilmer Flores fouled a ball directly into his face in Game Two.
Flores’ nose instantly started gushing blood as he clutched it, and manager Terry Collins and New York’s not so reliable training staff rushed to his side for assistance. Flores has been diagnosed with a broken nose.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it off the ground, but I’ve never seen it off the bat,” Collins said after the game, per Jessica Finn of Daily Mail. “It’s scarier when you go out there and the blood is pouring out of your nose.”
Last night’s occurrence encapsulates a 2017 season full of unthinkable injuries for the New York Mets. Flores joins a large portion of the team’s top talent that remains sidelined by injury.
Mets outfielder Michael Conforto, the team’s only All-Star, injured himself in an unusual way while swinging a bat.
On Aug. 23 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Conforto dislocated his shoulder and tore his posterior capsule by just swinging a bat. Usually, a dislocated shoulder needs a month or two to recover from. However, James Wagner of the New York Times reported that Conforto will have surgery, followed by a considerably long rehab.
Yoenis Cespedes, New York’s most powerful hitter, has seen hamstring injuries jeopardize his impact this season.
After missing almost all of May due to a severe hamstring injury, Cespedes re-injured the same hamstring on Aug. 25 after running home on what ended up being a dead ball. Cespedes was recently shut down for the season, and while he hit an impressive .292 when healthy, he only played in 81 games this season.
There is no indication that Mets utility infielder T.J. Rivera (partially torn UCL) and David Wright (cervical disk herniation) will return in 2017.
While New York’s offense has seen no shortage of injuries thus far, their rotation far more banged up.
Their ace, Noah Syndergaard, hasn’t pitched for them since April after tearing his right lat muscle. Starters Steven Matz (Ulnar nerve irritation) and Zack Wheeler (elbow surgery – out for season) both started 2017 on the DL and are now shut down for the remainder of it.
Despite Jeurys Familia’s and Matt Harvey’s recent returns to the Mets, they are underperforming and are playing meaningless baseball.
2017 was supposed to be a good one for the Mets. With a pitching staff that carried them to a World Series appearance in 2015 and a veteran-filled offense, things were supposed to go well for them.
Despite this, a constant flow of injuries have once again made Flushing baseball unexciting and has put New York’s future success at risk.