New York Mets general manager Zack Scott disclosed on Tuesday evening that Michael Conforto was activated off the injured list after missing the last 33 games with a hamstring injury.
It’s the second bit of good injury news for the Mets in as many days as Monday saw Jeff McNeil return from a long spell of his own on the shelf.
“It’ll be great,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said. “Including Michael today for our offense and yesterday we saw McNeil hit that rope to center and we look forward to seeing the same from Michael. A guy who can contribute to our offense and to our defense… We’re working through things, we’re talking about corresponding moves and that will keep going.”
The expectation is that Conforto will return to the Mets’ lineup at some point this week, but the Mets will be conservative with their star right fielder.
“There is a plan,” Rojas said. “Our performance staff talked to us and talked to Michael laying out what we’re expecting just because we don’t want to throw him in there and run into an immediate high workload coming from a hamstring injury.
“He’s good, he’s in great shape… but it’s getting really hot… we want to be cautious with that. We’ll monitor how things are going, how the games are going.”
Conforto will be keen on shaking off a slow start to the 2021 season at the plate, slashing .230/.356/.335 (.692 OPS) with two home runs and 13 RBI in 33 games.
A healthy Conforto and McNeil could provide the proverbial shot in the arm that the Mets offense has been starving for this season. They ranked 29th in Major League Baseball with an average of just 3.67 runs scored per game entering Tuesday night’s game with the Atlanta Braves.
