Following Carlos Carrasco’s first rehab appearance with the Brooklyn Cyclones last week, Mets manager Luis Rojas said the team still had not known what Carrasco’s next step will be.
While speaking with reporters on Monday afternoon, Rojas announced that Carrasco will be moving his rehab up to Triple-A Syracuse and he will throw about three innings, 45-50 pitches, with the team on Tuesday night in Trenton.
Carrasco threw 27 pitches, 17 of which were strikes, over two scoreless innings and gave up just one hit while striking out two on Thursday night with the Brooklyn Cyclones.
I was in attendance in Coney Island, and Carrasco looked pretty strong in his first appearance back on the mound, hitting 94 MPH with his fastball and recording a handful of swing and misses with his breaking pitches.
If all goes well on Tuesday night, Carrasco figures to be not too far off from rejoining the team and making his much anticipated Mets debut. Rojas said the Mets will wait and see how the outing goes, but it could potentially be the right-hander’s final before he rejoins the team.
“We’re interested to see how tomorrow goes and how he feels. If he does that then we could probably talk about him meeting us. But if he wants to do another one and make sure he stretches it to another inning or a pitch count then for sure we’ll wait,” Rojas said.
His eventual return will certainly be a welcomed one with all of the injuries in the Mets’ rotation. Their starting rotation as currently constructed includes Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker, Tylor Megill, Jerad Eickhoff, and likely Robert Stock.
The pitchers currently residing on the injured list include Carrasco, Jacob deGrom, David Peterson, Joey Lucchesi, Corey Oswalt, Jordan Yamamoto, Sean Reid-Foley, Robert Gsellman, and Noah Syndergaard.
Over his eleven year big league career, Carrasco has a 3.77 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 3.42 FIP, and 1305 strikeouts. He will certainly provide a much-needed reliable veteran presence to this depleted Mets starting rotation.
