The latest injury update for Mets’ Jose Quintana isn’t good at all
That’s why they say you can never have enough pitching, folks. The Mets are already being tested with the latest Jose Quintana injury update.
The starting pitcher was recently sidelined with a stress fracture in the fifth rib on his left side. While that stopped him from moving up further and competing in the World Baseball Classic, we weren’t sure how long it would keep him from playing for New York again. As it turns out, it’s going to be a while.
According to Mike Puma of the New York Post, the Mets’ current plan is to stop Quintana from pitching for three months. So at the earliest (if there are no setbacks) he can start a whelping program sometime in June. Considering he’ll have to start from scratch again in terms of workload, it’s possible Quintana won’t make his team debut until late July or even early August.
Andy Martino of SNY reported shortly after saying that the Mets are still finalizing a timeline for Quintana’s injury. A three-month shutdown is one of those options, but that’s just one of several options.
This is of course a huge crap. However, there are two specific reasons why it’s a bummer.
After dealing with bumps in his own production, Jose Quintana rebounded with his first 4.0 fWAR season since 2017. His 2.93 ERA was also a new single-season career high. At two years and $26 million, he was poised to be a steal for the Mets, even if his numbers never reached those heights again.
But the bigger bummer is the hole it leaves in rotation. When the organization introduced him to the media, General Manager Billy Eppler mentioned his consistency several times. He pitched 165.2 innings in 2022 and has only turned at least 130 frames twice in a year since 2012 (10 innings in ’20, 63 in ’21).
Well, that back-of-the-rotation innings eater isn’t there. Thankfully, the Mets felt depth thanks to the presence of David Peterson and Tylor Megill.
The rest of the way it’ll be good old-fashioned rotating competition. I recently mentioned that I would prefer Peterson to fill that vacancy. Puma notes that some Mets people are intrigued by the idea of running Megill with it. After all, he did just that in Jacob deGrom’s absence before succumbing to his own injury in 2022.
I suppose we’ll see what happens in the next two weeks before opening day. Regardless of who officially wins that rotation spot, both will be important factors for the Mets in 2023. Hopefully Quintana will too.
Matt Musico can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.