Edwin Diaz's rehab going smoothly, but Mets mum on the details
Mets pitcher Edwin Diaz poses for a portrait during Photo Day at Clover Park on Feb. 23 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
Edwin Diaz, the Mets’ all-everything closer whose March knee injury was a devastating blow to their season before it even started, has been recovering well and “meeting every benchmark,” manager Buck Showalter said Saturday.
But the organization remains mum on the details, including whether Diaz actually might have a chance to pitch this season — his stated goal shortly after getting hurt.
Among the signs of progress, in Showalter’s view: Diaz is able to crouch down now. That wasn’t true early in his rehabilitation after surgery to repair the torn patellar tendon in his right knee.
Showalter noticed that development when Diaz checked in on Starling Marte, who was ill Saturday.
“He was squatting down with Marte when Marte was sick down the hall. I don’t remember him squatting,” Showalter said. “As much as I was worried about Starling, it also caught my eye that he’s squatting . . . He’s doing well. He’s meeting every benchmark. What that means, they’ll let me know.”
From a perhaps more meaningful baseball perspective, Diaz regularly has been playing catch in the outfield at Citi Field before games.
His brother, Reds closer Alexis Diaz, recently said Edwin is throwing “every day” from 125 to 150 feet. That is a significant distance and usually is among the last steps before an injured pitcher gets back on the mound, though Diaz’s injury isn’t exactly a typical one.
Asked when Diaz might advance to mound work, the Mets declined to comment.
“He’s doing really well,” Alexis Diaz told Newsday during All-Star festivities in Seattle. “He’s been recovering pretty fast. He’s a true athlete and really can recover quickly, so I hope to see him out there really soon.”
Diaz in 2022 finally became the elite closer the Mets thought he could be, posting a 1.31 ERA and 0.84 WHIP on his way to winning the NL Reliever of the Year award. They rewarded him with a five-year, $102 million contract at the start of the offseason before Diaz, a free agent, was allowed to negotiate with other clubs.
Disaster struck when Diaz was playing for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. As he celebrated finishing off a major win over the Dominican Republic, he crumpled to the ground, suddenly unable to walk.
General manager Billy Eppler said then that a full recovery usually takes eight months, which would put him in November. But there were cases, Eppler said, of a six-month comeback. So September, theoretically, was in play.
Showalter said his intention is for Diaz’s timeline — and possible 2023 return — to be independent of the state of the Mets’ season.
If they keep trending in this direction, in which case September games would mean little, it would not render a potential Diaz cameo useless. Conversely, if the Mets make an unlikely run into the playoff picture, they won’t rush him back to help.
“I don’t want to speak for everyone. Someone may feel differently. But when medical people and rehab people say ‘this is the next step, pitch in a game,’ he’ll pitch in a game,” Showalter said. “We’re not going to push it forward or pull it back. It’ll all be medically based. But that hasn’t been approached yet in a conversation. We’re not there yet.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
