Promising Mets starting pitcher Christian Scott was placed on the 15-day injured list, the team announced Wednesday. The move is retroactive to Monday and lefty Alex Young was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse as a corresponding move.
The bad news here is Scott’s injury is a sprained ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), according to the official press release. That’s the ligament that, when torn, often leads to Tommy John surgery. Hopefully Scott and the Mets caught this early enough to shut him down in time and avoid the serious and worrisome outcome here, but they aren’t out of the proverbial woods just yet.
Manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters before Tuesday’s game the Mets are still looking for clarity on whether or not this is a sprain or a tear. He said they will have “multiple people” look at Scott’s imaging results before deciding on a course of action (via SNY). Scott told them he had discomfort in his elbow after his last start.
The 25-year-old fifth-round draft pick debuted earlier this season and has made nine starts, going 0-3 with a 4.56 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and 39 strikeouts in 47 1/3 innings. He’s had a few promising outings, flashing the immense upside, but has dealt with inconsistency and sometimes inefficiency. Those are normal growing pains for rookies.
The Mets are getting back Kodai Senga from the injured list this week and the plan was previously to run with a six-man rotation — Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, David Peterson and José Quintana being the other four. Maybe the Scott injury causes them to remain with a five-man rotation or perhaps they’ll give Adrian Houser or Tylor Megill another shot in the rotation.
The Mets enter play Tuesday 51-48, which is good to hold down the third and final wild-card spot in the National League. They’ve got a two-game series against the Yankees on tap before four home games against the Braves.
