It seemed as if the Mets' season hung in the balance for roughly 12 hours after Jacob deGrom suffered a hyperextended elbowWednesday night.
Elbow injuries are never a good development for pitchers, and there's always the fear that an MRI may reveal a ligament injury that could require surgery.
Thursday morning, deGrom and the entire organization finally could breathe easy again.
The Mets received about as good news as possible with the MRI coming back clean and the righty being cleared to make his next start. DeGrom believes he'll be pitching against Cincinnati Monday, although he left the door open to possibly missing that outing.
“They asked me to be honest with them. If I see something, say something," deGrom said Thursday before the Mets faced Atlanta. "If I have to miss one start versus going out there and having to pitch through something and end up hurting something."
The Mets are already unsure what they will receive from their other three starters although Zack Wheeler has pitched well. Steven Matz and Jason Vargas, who started Thursday against Atlanta, are both off to poor starts this season.
The plan is for deGrom to play catch Friday, and then throw a bullpen Saturday. The Mets have not made any preparations yet in case Harvey can't start.
"We’re going to really home in on him and make sure everything is 100 percent if he’s going to make that start," Mets manager Mickey Callaway said. "We just have to make sure his mechanics are where they need to be to continue to maintain his health. Obviously talking to him on a daily basis, just kinda take that route and go from there."
Even if deGrom misses one start, the Mets can live with that. This organization has had so many things go wrong when it comes to injuries, and twice this week it has received good news with Yoenis Cespedes returning fast from a sore left thumb.
DeGrom, though, did learn a big lesson from this incident.
“Don’t swing and miss," he said. "That’s the biggest thing.”
