Clay Holmes is on the cusp of returning to the mound, but the chances of it being for the Mets seem slim.
That fact is not lost on Holmes, who addressed the looming Aug. 3 trade deadline on Friday after his first minor league rehab start for Triple-A Syracuse.
In addition to recovering from a fractured right fibula over the past two-plus months, the veteran pitcher has also had to come to terms with the possibility of playing for a different team by the time he is fully healed.
“It’s different, for sure,” he said before the Mets opened a 10-game homestand against the Dodgers. “It’s just a unique scenario. I think the timing of just this injury, just the unforeseen kind of circumstances are with the team. I think all that together has just put together a very unique, weird scenario here. Sometimes it’s easy to let your mind wander, and there’s a lot of things out there that you can’t really control. You do know that there’ll be some impact on your future, but I think just as an athlete, especially me right now, I want to be pitching my best, whether that’s here or somewhere else these last two months.
“I just need to really be locked in on just the things I can do, things I can do on the mound, and hopefully the other things take care of themselves.”
Asked if extension talks between the Mets and his agent ever went anywhere, Holmes said he didn’t think “there was a ton there.”
The 33-year-old has a $12 million player option for 2027 and is widely expected to decline in order to enter free agency this upcoming winter. Considering Holmes is one of the few bright spots on the team, the Mets certainly recognize him as one of their top trade chips.
Holmes posted a 2.39 ERA over nine starts and 52 ²/₃ innings before getting struck by a comebacker on May 15.
“I don’t know. We’ll see how this week goes,” Holmes said when asked what the next steps in his rehab are. “We haven’t really had a ton of discussion about it yet, but there’s always that part of you that is like, ‘Man, I can pitch in a game. And feel like I can pitch in the big leagues.’ I think some of that’s just kind of how you’re wired as an athlete. So we’ll just see where we’re at, seek everybody’s opinion. Feel good, feel ready to compete, feel like I can compete anywhere. We just see how this week goes to see what’s next.”
In his rehab start on Thursday against the RailRiders, Holmes gave up two runs on three hits, walked two batters and struck out two over 2 ¹/₃ innings.
He threw 28 strikes over his 51 total pitches.
According to Holmes, the recovery process was pretty seamless.
He said he met all the timelines that were set before him and felt like there were “no huge roadblocks” at any point.
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“I think in this timeline of being back, around or before August 1, was definitely ambitious,” Holmes said. “And you know, here we are looking at it. I think just the plan that the training staff has put in place has been great. We’ve executed it really well, and the ankle’s responded really well. It can be a tricky thing when you deal with a non-throwing arm injury because there’s just a balance of being able to keep the arm ready and keeping, in my case, the ankle in a good place and making sure you just don’t really … ankle may be good, but you still can’t over-push the rest of the body.
“I think just the balance we’ve kept with that has been really good. So I’m really happy where I’m at and how I feel. Very thankful for that.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
