Mets ace Noah Syndergaard to the disabled list

Mets ace Noah Syndergaard diagnosed with torn right lat muscle, no timetable set for his return.

The Mets shared the bad news we were all hoping to avoid on Monday morning. The anchor of the rotation, Noah Syndergaard, tore a right lat muscle on Sunday afternoon and has been placed on the 10-day disabled list.

The team also shared that there is no date for a possible return for Thor at this time.

Syndergaard was removed from Sunday’s game in the second inning and throwing a changeup to Bryce Harper and coming up in pain. Trainer Ray Ramirez and manager Terry Collins rushed to the mound, and you could see Syndergaard saying it was his lat that was the issue.

This awful news puts an exclamation point on an already terrible week for Syndergaard. After skipping his scheduled starts on both Wednesday and Thursday with a “tired arm,” he declined an MRI at the team’s request declaring himself and his bicep ready to go for Sunday, his next time out on the mound.

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GM Sandy Alderson spoke to the media on Sunday after the game, and basically admitted that there was no way to know whether going through with the MRI as originally planned would have helped find the lat issue before Sunday.

While his bicep tendonitis doesn’t seem to have had any impact on his torn lat, the optics of the situation make Syndergaard, and the Mets’ staff by extension look horrible.

Syndergaard comes out looking like he caused his own injury by trying to play through something without getting it fully checked out, and the Mets ultimately look like they’re being run by the players and that no one is really in charge.

Hopefully Noah won’t be out for too long, but at this time, the odds are that it’ll be at least a few weeks. In 2015, Steven Matz tore his lat muscle as well, and he ended up being sidelined for two months.

For the Mets as a team, this latest blow couldn’t have come at a worse time. With two other starters, Matz and Seth Lugo still out with their own injuries, the organization will likely have to tap into a weak roster to fill in for Syndergaard.

Likely candidates to make starts are Sean Gilmartin, who is already with the Mets and was lit up on Sunday as Syndergaard’s injury replacement, and Rafael Montero, who’s down in Triple-A Las Vegas and struggled severely in his time up with the big league club early in the season.

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The season isn’t over, but with the way things have been going, it sure feels like it’s slipping out of the Mets’ hands little by little while the rest of us just helplessly watch.