Oblique strain may shelve Peterson 8 weeks

NEW YORK -- When David Peterson left his Wednesday start after feeling a sharp pain in his right side, Mets officials understood the likelihood that they would be without him for quite some time.

Now they have a better idea of just how long, as an MRI revealed that Peterson has a strained right oblique. This type of strain, which is between Grade 1 and Grade 2, typically carries a recovery period of about eight weeks, according to manager Luis Rojas. But the Mets are confident that Peterson won’t require quite that much time to heal, which would hint at a return before the end of August.

“They’re just going to check week to week how his condition improves,” Rojas said. “We just don’t want to commit to an exact timeline when we can get him back. We’ll see.”

Peterson's extended absence is a significant blow to the Mets’ rotation, considering he had produced a 1.08 ERA in three starts prior to the outing in which he hurt his side. The Mets are also without Joey Lucchesi for the rest of the season, Noah Syndergaard until likely September and Carlos Carrasco until late July or early August. They’ve patched things together with a mix of depth pieces, including rookie Tylor Megill, but losing Peterson stings.

“He was giving us what we needed,” Rojas said. “To be throwing the way he was throwing, it was a relief for everybody. You could see the bullpen being more efficient. I think we connected more games. We started winning more games in a row because of that. Everything was just operating in sync. So yeah, it’s a tough loss for the team when you lose a guy like that.”

Overall, Peterson was 2-6 with a 5.54 ERA in 15 starts. If there is a silver lining to his absence, it is that the Mets will no longer need to fret over his innings, coming off a rookie season in which he threw just 49 2/3 of them.

Even so, the rotation without Peterson is a concern. The Mets made an initial move to shake things up this weekend, taking Megill out of his scheduled Sunday start and tentatively lining him up for Monday against the Brewers so that he can give them additional length. The Mets feel more comfortable trying to cobble together seven innings in Game 2 of a doubleheader on Sunday than trying to do the same in a nine-inning game on Monday.

Thor throws

As for Syndergaard, the right-hander has been playing catch off flat ground for about a week. When the Mets shut him down in May due to tightness in his right elbow, they planned to keep him from throwing for approximately six weeks, but he felt well enough for the Mets to shrink that timeline.

Still, the team plans to tread carefully with Syndergaard, who will take approximately two months to ramp up to game action. Rojas called Sept. 1 a reasonable goal for the return of Syndergaard, who has not pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery in March 2020.

Carrasco closer

Also of note is Carrasco, who has now thrown two bullpen sessions as he looks to return from a torn right hamstring.

“The ball was just jumping out of his hand,” Rojas said of Carrasco’s first session earlier this week. “The fastball velocity was similar to where it is in midseason.”

Rojas added that Carrasco could join the Mets before he is fully stretched out to a 100-plus pitch workload. As long as Carrasco’s hamstring proves healthy, the Mets could bring him to the big leagues to stretch out on the fly, given their current spate of pitching problems.