CINCINNATI — Jacob deGrom went back to New York a day earlier than the rest of his teammates, but the Mets are telling fans not to panic.
DeGrom, sidelined on the injured list with tightness in his right forearm, left Cincinnati on Tuesday and traveled to New York to “continue his treatment,” per manager Luis Rojas. Though the ace is still shut down from throwing until that tightness — or inflammation, as acting GM Zack Scott referred to it on Big Time Baseball — disappears, the team is less concerned about his latest injury than it was a few days ago.
“He is improving,” Rojas said on Tuesday. “Right now, he’s not throwing today. We’ll reassess about the throwing part maybe tomorrow. But he’s improving. The tightness has diminished. The range of motion is a little better.”
Since the 33-year-old was not scheduled to throw or ramp up during the Mets’ three-game series against the Reds, the club and medical staff saw no point in deGrom remaining at Cincinnati.
“There’s nothing he was going to do here,” Rojas said. “We don’t think he was going to throw with the tightness that he had. So we’d rather send him there so he can get his work there and focus on that rather than trying to be diligent and get into pitching. He’s focusing on getting that better and we’ll see how he is tomorrow.”
Scott downplayed the severity of deGrom’s fifth injury of the season on his podcast appearance with MLB Network’s Jon Heyman on Tuesday. The Mets acting GM said he is “not too concerned” and he expects deGrom to return to the mound “pretty quick.” But the club does not yet know when he can start throwing again. Scott, though, compared his forearm tightness to the previous four injuries deGrom sustained this season — in that it is minor and should not require a long IL stint.
The earliest deGrom can return to the active roster is Sunday.
