Mets concerned about Frankie Montas pitching poorly during minor-league rehab
New York Mets pitcher Frankie Montas at spring training. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The Mets are concerned about how poorly Frankie Montas is pitching during his minor-league rehab outings.
Frankie says relax.
“I feel pretty good,” Montas said on Saturday. “Nothing hurts. Nothing’s bothering me.”
On Friday night, Montas allowed eight runs in 1 2⁄3 innings for Triple-A Syracuse against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. In five rehab outings, he has a 13.17 ERA.
Montas has at least one more left as he awaits his Mets debut after signing a two-year, $34 million deal in the offseason and going down with a lat strain in spring training.
Montas, 32, said he is less concerned with the results than how healthy he is.
“I think, for me, it’s how I feel,” he said. “Like I said, this rehab process was actually pretty good. They did an amazing job on my lat. This is probably, I’ll say, the strongest my shoulder and arm has felt in a while.”
Rehab assignments are mostly about making sure the player is healthy before appearing in major-league games, but, at some point, the Mets would like to see Montas get some outs.
“Obviously, we haven’t seen the results, but physically he continues to say he’s fine,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I haven’t talked to him. I saw him from a distance today, so I’ll get back with him. But he’s going to get one more in Triple-A and then we’ll have a decision after that.”
Remember when the Mets had too many starters? Well, with Kodai Senga going on the injured list after straining a hamstring on Thursday and Montas’ return to the rotation not assured — he could end up in the bullpen — the Mets are reminded that you can never have enough (healthy and effective) pitching.
“It’s a good thing to have more major league-quality starting pitchers than less,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said on Friday. “I’m frankly never really concerned about having too much because as we saw last night and as I’ve experienced throughout my career, it’s very, very rare where you actually get to the point where you have too many starting pitchers than you can roster, and if somehow at some point we get to that this season, I’ll have to make some decisions. I imagine those will be difficult decisions, but for now I am very happy with how the group that we’ve had to this point has pitched.
“I’m excited that we continue to get healthier and get guys like Frankie and ultimately Sean [Manaea] back in the rotation. I think that will make us stronger, certainly deeper. And so that’s where my mind is right now. If we do get to the point where everyone is healthy at once, then yes, that will lead to some challenging decisions.”
Manaea (oblique strain) is scheduled to make his third rehab start on Sunday.
In other injury news, Mark Vientos (hamstring) will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday or Wednesday, Mendoza said.
Newsday’s Laura Albanese contributed to this story.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
