Mets' Jacob deGrom will be shut down for the next 4 weeks

JUPITER, Fla. — Jacob deGrom will begin this season the same way he ended the last: sidelined indefinitely by an injury to his talented and expensive right arm.

He was diagnosed with a stress reaction in his right shoulder blade and will not throw for up to four weeks, the Mets revealed Friday afternoon. General manager Billy Eppler declined to say when he realistically expects deGrom to return. But considering the shutdown period and the ensuing requisite buildup, the Mets’ ace — widely considered the best pitcher in baseball — may well be out for months.

Less than a week before Opening Day, that is a huge blow to a team with championship aspirations.

“He’s disappointed. We’re disappointed. Everybody is sharing in the disappointment right now, you know what I mean? Nobody is immune to that,” said Eppler, who declined to attribute deGrom’s injury to the lockout-shortened spring training.

“We’re going to do everything we can to support him in every which way we can. Jake’s a resilient person. With time, things heal. And so this is another situation where some time will have him healed and we’ll get him back on the hill.”

Manager Buck Showalter said: “We’ll get him back. It’s another challenge that we know we’re going to have during the season. It just happens at the front end.”

For deGrom, who will turn 34 in June, this is perhaps the most serious of his 11 injuries in the past 21 months. He missed the entire second half of last season because of right forearm and right elbow problems.

Upon arriving at spring training in March, he declared himself fully healthy and reported no issues through two starts (five innings) in exhibition games. Then while playing long toss Thursday, in preparation for what would have been his spring training finale the next day, he felt tightness in the back of his shoulder.

An MRI on Friday morning revealed the stress reaction in the right scapula, which caused inflammation in the area. The scapula is the large, triangular bone in the shoulder.

A scapular stress reaction is not a particularly common injury. When Matt Harvey had a stress injury there in 2017, he missed 2 1⁄2 months. When Michael Wacha, also a former Met, suffered a stress reaction in 2014 with the Cardinals, he missed the same amount of time in the same window (mid-June to early September).

The Mets’ doctors did not look at deGrom’s elbow, Eppler said, because deGrom has had “no complaints” about that body part.

What the Mets may be missing

Jacob deGrom may not pitch in a game for the Mets until June — a four-week shutdown, typically followed by at least a four-week buildup. Here's how deGrom has fared in the early months of the season.

MARCH/APRIL

W/L: 13-9

ERA: 2.41

K/9: 11.6

WHIP: 1.071

MAY

W/L: 10-7

ERA: 2.81

K/9: 10.1

WHIP: 1.088

Eppler left the Mets semantic wiggle room on when deGrom will get his next MRI.

“There could be situations where we manipulate the shoulder a little bit, move him around, test him,” Eppler said. “If he doesn’t present with any kind of symptom at that time and everything seems to go well and it goes well for a number of days in a row, then maybe you’re looking at a little bit earlier. Based on what we saw, I think four weeks is probably a reasonable timeline to take another photo.”

The ripple effects of deGrom’s absence include an opening in the rotation. Righthander Tylor Megill and lefthander David Peterson, each up to five-inning appearances in their camp workload, are candidates to fill in.

“I can see why people like them,” Showalter said. “They’ve been everything I was told about them and maybe a little more. Quality depth options.”

Asked about Megill, Eppler said: “He’s an option. But there’s also David Peterson, there’s also [Trevor] Williams. We have guys that can step in and do that. Some guys that have been built up. One day at a time right now and we’ll go through some roster meetings.”

The deGrom news does not increase the Mets’ interest in adding a starter from outside the organization, Eppler said.

In separate interviews, Eppler and Showalter avoided naming Max Scherzer — long scheduled for the second game of the season — the Mets’ new Opening Day starter. If he does get the ball, his Mets debut will come against his old team, the Nationals, in his former city, Washington, D.C.

Showalter tried to put his best positive spin on it.

“I look at it as, look at how much stronger Jake is going to be over the long haul of the season now,” he said. “We got an idea of what we’re dealing with. It could’ve been a lot worse than this. We’ll get him back.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.