Less than a week after being activated from the
disabled listed, the Mets have shut outfield Yoenis Cespedes down for the rest
of the season so he can undergo surgery to remove bone calcifications from his
right and left heels this week.
Green Bay based Dr. Robert Anderson will perform
the surgery. Cespedes will need 8 to 10 months to recover from the surgery,
meaning he could be out deep into the 2019 season.
Cespedes started complaining about pain in his
feet following Friday’s game against the Yankees, where he had two hits,
including a homerun in his first game back off the disabled list.
Cespedes had an MR on Monday in New York, which revealed
the sore bone calcifications. According to the Mets, the pain forced Cespedes to
alter his gait in an attempt to manage the discomfort, which has resulted in
stress and injury to other parts of his legs.
The consensus among the team doctors and
specialists is that all conservative treatment options to manage the pain have
been exhausted and that surgery is now recommended.
Still the questions about what the Mets knew,
and when they knew about Cespedes’ heel issues is one that has baffled fans and
media alike since the outfielder revealed the injury on Friday night.
Those questions were magnified when manager Mickey
Callaway made a stunning revelation that he wasn’t aware of Cespedes’ issue on
Saturday, then tried to backtrack on Monday, saying he misspoke.
“On that, obviously, we talk
all the time,’’ the manager said Monday. “And I knew what [Cespedes] had said.
I didn’t see his interview [from after the game], but I get filled in on what
everybody says every night. I did a bad job of trying to get the question narrowed down.
That was my bad. It was a bad way to do it.”
Moreover the Mets have said
they were “aware” of Cespedes heel problems for some time. Cespedes’ history of
bone calcifications goes back 15 years. Ricco added the Mets were
aware of the injury when they initially acquired Cespedes in 2015 from Detroit.
“This is something Yoenis has dealt with for a
number of years and it was a matter of managing the pain with
anti-inflammatories and preventative treatment,” Interim General Manager John
Ricco said.
On Saturday, Mickey Callaway said the hip
flexor; quad and heel injuries were all “interconnected.”
Which again begs the question that many have
asked in the ensuing days since the injury was annoucned, if the heel problems
were related to the other leg injuries, why didn’t the Mets end Cespedes’
season sooner?
It’s a question of Monday Morning Quarterbacking
where only the Mets know the true answer.
Ricco may have given an indication with this
statement: “(The heel injuries have) now progressed to the point that he felt
he could not manage the pain despite all the measures taken to help him prepare
to play.”
“I have worked hard
to manage the pain and fight through it, but it got worse and worse,” Céspedes
said. “The doctors are confident nothing else but surgery can address this
injury and allow me to return to full strength.”
Now the Mets are
without their best hitter until sometime in the later part of the 2019 season and they have nobody to blame but themselves for it. The Mets should have disabled Cespedes sooner, but refused to do so. By the way, the Mets are on the hook for $58 million on Cespedes' deal over the next two seasons.
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