justin verlander mets
Rich Storry-USA TODAY Sports

One of the biggest reasons why many thought Justin Verlander would be an upgrade over Jacob deGrom for the Mets was his durability. Sure, he missed virtually all of 2020 and 2021 because of Tommy John surgery. But still, he’s thrown at least 170 innings in a season 14 times since 2006. The dude is durable!

Well, now he’s on the Mets, so things change a little bit. New York announced on Thursday afternoon that the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner is hitting the Injured List with a low-grade teres major strain. For those of you who have no idea what the hell that is (like me), it’s part of the scapula, which is part of the shoulder.

A shoulder injury for a 40-year-old pitcher coming off his first full season after Tommy John surgery doesn’t sound good. The silver lining is Verlander will continue throwing while waiting for his injury to get re-checked. So, it could be worse.

Verlander spoke with the media about his ailment. Given the time of year, the hurler and the club are being cautious with a long-term vision in mind:

This is the second bit of bad pitching news for the Mets on Thursday, as they also announced reliever Bryce Montes de Oca underwent Tommy John surgery. It looks like that friendly competition between Verlander and Max Scherzer will have to wait.

All that talk about David Peterson beating out Tylor Megill for the final rotation spot, and ended up meaning nothing. We don’t know exactly how this impacts the rotation yet, but one can imagine Megill could be heading back to the big leagues after getting optioned to Triple-A.

Remember when I said New York will need all the pitching depth they can get this year? Yea, that’s unfortunately already been on full display and the first pitch of the regular season hasn’t been thrown yet.

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You can reach Matt Musico at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.

Matt Musico is an editor for ESNY. He’s been writing about baseball and the Mets for the past decade. His work has been featured on numberFire, MetsMerized Online, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo! Sports.