Sean Manaea’s laborious rehab from a spring-training oblique injury has taken yet another turn, as Mets manager Carlos Mendoza and president of baseball operations David Stearns announced Tuesday that the southpaw will be shut down for two to three days due to a loose body in his pitching elbow.
It is not expected to delay his rehab by a significant amount — he should be back on a minor-league mound for his next rehab start by the middle of next week and could then make his Mets season debut after that.
“I don’t think it slows us down too much,” Stearns said. “I think the goal right now is to pitch in a rehab game a week from today, next Tuesday, next Wednesday. If he’s able to do that and it goes well, that will probably be his last one…
“We don’t anticipate this necessarily resetting anything.”
There is a chance, though, that he could need surgery during the offseason.
“Sometimes, you can pitch with these loose bodies for your entire career,” Stearns said. “Sometimes, they need to come out. We don’t have a determination of that, yet.”
The 33-year-old is in the first year of a three-year, $75 million contract, which kept him in New York after emerging as the team’s ace in the second half of the 2024 season, which ended with a run to the NLCS.
Upon injuring his oblique in late February, Manaea was initially expected to return toward the end of April, but he suffered a setback that shut him down for two weeks right at the start of the regular season.
The Mets need Manaea now more than ever, with the depth of the starting rotation being stretched dangerously thin. Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill are out for at least a month while Frankie Montas makes his season debut Tuesday night at Citi Field against the Atlanta Braves after recovering from a lat injury on the first official day of spring training.
Paul Blackburn and Griffin Canning have significantly struggled as of late, leaving the Mets with Clay Holmes and David Peterson as their only reliable starters.
