Speaking to the media before Saturday’s matinee in the Bronx, New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway talked about the journey his star slugger Yoenis Cespedes has endured to make it back to the Mets and lamented the seemingly tough news that he arrived to hear about this morning.
After last night’s 7-5 win over the Yankees, Cespedes told members of the Mets’ beat writers corps that he would likely need surgery to rectify calcification in both of his heels.
To Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, Cespedes seemed to be unsure if he could continue to play through this injury. When asked if he could stay active until the end of the season he said, “I don’t know”.
Again to DiComo, Mickey Callaway said, “I feel bad for the guy. He has worked so hard. If you see the stuff he has to go through to get back — he worked so hard this winter.”
“We thought his heels were in a really good spot coming in, or we wouldn’t have activated him,” he said. “He was good to go. He was in a good spot. As far as what the doctors have advised Yo — or know about it — I wasn’t in the room. It would be tough for me to speculate on anything.”
Cespedes, 32, returned to the team last night after missing over two months with a plethora of reported lower-body issues (hip flexor, quad, heel), but was formally sidelined with a mild strain of the right hip flexor.
Earlier in July, Laura Albanese of Newsday quoted Mets’ assistant GM John Ricco saying that “Cespedes’ heel is the chronic condition, not the hip and quad”.
In a tweet from DiComo during today’s game, he announced that none of the team’s front-office members would be available to speak to the media regarding the Cespedes saga.
