Mets' Edwin Diaz excited at possibility of pitching this season
Mets pitcher Edwin Diaz looks on from the dugout during an MLB baseball game against Atlanta at Citi Field on Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Edwin Diaz still wants to pitch in a major-league game this season, he said Monday, but the Mets haven’t decided if that will happen — even if he is physically capable of doing so.
Speaking to New York reporters for the first time since April, Diaz said the rehabilitation of his severe knee injury has been “perfect” and he is “feeling great.”
With five weeks remaining in the season, the clock is ticking.
“My goal is to come back this season and throw one or two games or whatever,” he said. “That’s how I’m looking at my workouts and everything. My goal is to come back as soon as I can. Right now we’re on a positive note. Everything is coming really good. I’m really happy.
“The main thing for me is how my knee is, good and healthy. I feel healthy right now. Pitching in a game, I just want to get that positive note to go home and relax and work hard for next year.”
Diaz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee in March while celebrating Puerto Rico’s victory over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. At the time, doctors gave him a recovery timeline of six to eight months, putting the end of the regular season within reach.
His most recent milestone was his first full-fledged bullpen session Sunday. Manager Buck Showalter had mentioned that Diaz had thrown off a mound repeatedly in the days before that, but Diaz clarified that those sessions were just playing catch from the rubber of the mound. This step forward — with a catcher crouched down behind the plate and a greater effort level — was different.
He said he “easily” got his fastball to 93-95 mph, the range within what the Mets wanted.
“I was concentrating on making my pitches and trying to throw like a game,” Diaz said. “I was trying to throw strikes, trying to make my pitches.”
A normal sequence of next steps would include at least a few more bullpen sessions, then a simulated game or two, then a minor-league rehab assignment. So he has plenty of work to do before getting into a real game becomes a possibility.
“We’re waiting for the medical sign-off. Then there will be a decision to be made,” Showalter said. “That’s a good thing — to think that he would be considered would be really exciting for everybody. But whether or not we go down that road, we’re not there yet.”
Marte update
Starling Marte is spending this week in Philadelphia doing specialized physical therapy with “somebody that our trainers and doctors and medical people think really highly of,” Showalter said.
At issue is Marte’s groin, which he had surgery on in November and which has bothered him virtually all of this season. The problem has to do with scar tissue that developed as a result of the operation.
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.
