Mets considering DL stint for Michael Conforto

The Mets have been riddled with injuries, but Michael Conforto‘s wrist has easily been one of the more confusing ones this season

He’s been out since Sunday, and many of us hoped he’d only miss a day or two tops, but Michael Conforto’s wrist has still not gotten better since being struck by a pitch in San Francisco this past weekend.

The Mets have tried waiting it out, and have played short-handed for almost a week while Conforto tries to get back in the lineup, but it seems that strategy may no longer be the best one going forward.

Before the series opener at Citi Field against the Philadelphia Phillies, general manager Sandy Alderson spoke about the kid and what the team is considering given the fact that his hand is just not getting better.

The good news is that every test that has been performed on Conforto’s wrist has come back clean. There’s no structural damage, so this is really just an annoying bone bruise. Unfortunately, as we know from past experiences, bone bruises can be incredibly frustrating to deal with because there’s really no timetable for it to heal. Every person and every bruise is different.

With Conforto, it seems like it’s mainly just impacting his ability to grip and swing the bat. It’s thankfully his left hand that’s having the issue, so there’s no worry about him throwing the ball or anything like that. Nevertheless, it still needs to fully heal for him to be able to have the same offensive impact as he did at the beginning of this season.

The Mets are now faced with the same decision we discussed yesterday. When to DL Conforto and just do without him for the next few days? Logically, the move should come on Saturday when the Mets activate Zack Wheeler from the disabled list and need to make a corresponding move on the roster.

Unfortunately, that will still leave the Mets playing short-handed, so they could make two moves on the same day, but that seems unlikely.

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The decision to DL Conforto would be retroactive to earlier in the week (not back to the original injury date as the team can only backdate it three days), so he would be available to come off it by mid-week before the All-Star break.

It’s not ideal that the Mets have had to play this game with Conforto out of the lineup, taking a spot on the bench, but with nagging injuries like that, it’s going to happen sometimes. The best thing the team can do is give Conforto as much time as he needs to fully heal. Hopefully they don’t rush him back at all.