PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets’ rotation vacancies just went from one to two.
Carlos Carrasco strained his right hamstring Thursday after he pitched live batting practice, the team announced in a statement. He sustained the injury during his conditioning, following his first sim game in 10 days. Carrasco will undergo an MRI, which will determine the next steps of his treatment.
The right-hander was previously sidelined in camp for nearly a week with right elbow soreness. Prior to his hamstring injury, he was progressing well with his ramp-up and hitting all of his benchmarks. His latest milestone was the live batting practice he threw Thursday, in which he retired three of the five batters he’d faced.
“It’s devastating,” said Marcus Stroman, who gave up one run over five innings Thursday in his fourth Grapefruit League start, of Carrasco’s injury. “We need him for the rotation to be elite. I want him in the rotation badly.”
Manager Luis Rojas had expressed confidence as recently as Thursday morning that Carrasco would be healthy and prepared enough to make his first turn through the rotation in the first week of April. But with the addition of his right hamstring strain, that outlook appears increasingly unlikely.
The Mets already have a competition going for their fifth-starter vacancy. With Carrasco expected to need additional time to return to the mound, the club will likely need two pitchers to fill the back end of the rotation and get the Mets through — at least — the first week of regular season games.
Left-handers David Peterson and Joey Lucchesi and right-hander Jordan Yamamoto have been high on the Mets’ list to fill that fifth starter role. It’s now reasonable to expect two pitchers from that trio to be included in the opening day rotation alongside Jacob deGrom, Stroman and Taijuan Walker.
