This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo's Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SAN DIEGO -- At some point during their stretch run, the Mets may untether Edwin Díaz. But they haven’t done so yet, raising questions about their appetite to do it at all in his first season back from knee surgery.

Consider: Díaz has not pitched on three consecutive days all year. He's gone back to back just eight times and never over the past seven weeks, while giving the Mets more than three outs on only three occasions.

On one hand, it’s not altogether out of sync with Díaz’s usage during his last healthy season in 2022. By late August of that summer, Díaz had pitched in back-to-back games nine times, he’d never thrown three in a row and he’d given the Mets more than three outs on three occasions. But the Mets ultimately unleashed Díaz in September and October, leaning on him for four or more outs another three times down the stretch (plus once in the Wild Card Series on the front end of a back to back).

Might manager Carlos Mendoza follow a similar blueprint to the one Buck Showalter used?

“There’s a reason why we protected these guys throughout the year,” Mendoza said. “But there’s going to be some cases where we still are going to have to protect some of the guys here, and there are some guys that we’re probably going to be pushing here if they’re feeling good.”

And yet.

On Sunday in San Diego, Mendoza opted against using a well-rested Díaz in the eighth inning with the potential tying run at the plate and the top of the order due up for the Padres, who are one of three clubs the Mets are realistically trying to chase down in the standings. Given the context, it was one of the higher-leverage spots of the entire season, but Mendoza -- citing the number of times Díaz had previously warmed -- indicated there was a tangible difference between using his closer for four or five outs.

Rather than turn to Díaz, Mendoza stuck with José Buttó, who allowed a game-tying home run to Jurickson Profar. Díaz eventually entered for the bottom of the ninth and gave up a walk-off homer to Jackson Merrill in what became a 3-2 loss.

“I wasn’t going to push him,” Mendoza said of potentially bringing Díaz in earlier, adding: “There’s a lot that goes into it, especially after he was up twice early. I was pushing him by getting him more than one inning.”

Maybe the outcome also would have been the same regardless of how Mendoza deployed his closer. Díaz did, after all, allow a homer himself. But that argument ignores the fact that Díaz is the Mets’ best reliever and, as such, should be performing in the highest-leverage situations. It’s something he did routinely before his 2023 knee injury and a role he’s typically embraced. Díaz has never been the type of anachronistic closer who only wants to pitch the ninth.

Sunday’s appearance was Díaz’s first in four days, with a team off-day bookending it on the other side. Asking him for five outs would not have met any obvious qualifications for aggressive usage, though it’s difficult to quantify the effects of warming and sitting multiple times in a game, a week, a month.

To be fair, it’s not as if the Mets are shying away from using Díaz in clutch spots -- he’s actually appeared in a higher percentage of high-leverage situations, according to Baseball-Reference data, than he did two years ago. The Mets are just shying away from using him with their usual regularity. Through 131 games, Díaz is on pace for 46 innings, which would be by far the lowest full-season total of his career.

Whether Mendoza’s usage of him changes now that the Mets have reached the final five weeks of the season -- the stretch run, as it were -- remains to be seen. It’s obvious the team has trodden carefully with its $102 million reliever. He is, by all accounts, plenty well-rested.

Díaz may not be enjoying the same type of dominant year he did before his injury, but he’s still the best option the Mets have at the back of their bullpen. If they don't unleash him now, then when?