The hits keep coming for the Mets- and the good kind.
Francisco Alvarez left Tuesday’s game against the Tigers with a right knee injury in the bottom of the sixth and will undergo imaging on Wednesday.
The catcher was in discomfort following a swing with A.J. Ewing at second base, and after a brief visit from the training staff, Alvarez was removed from the game and replaced by pinch-hitter Luis Torrens, who drew a walk.
Alvarez, who’d cooled off this season, drove in a run and doubled earlier in the game against Detroit right-hander Jack Flaherty.
The Mets already had plenty of injury concerns before Alvarez went down, as Luis Robert Jr., Jorge Polanco and Francisco Lindor are all regulars who are on the injured list.
Robert has been sidelined for two weeks with lumbar spine disc herniation and isn’t close to returning.
President of baseball operations David Stearns said Tuesday that Robert’s back soreness had “not resolved” and the outfielder was seeing additional specialists.
The Mets traded for Robert in the offseason despite the outfielder’s injury issues the last two seasons with the White Sox and put together a schedule during spring training that they took into the regular season in an attempt to keep him healthy, but it didn’t prevent him from hitting the IL.
“It’s gonna take some time,’’ Carlos Mendoza said of Robert’s return.
Stearns said surgery is so far not on the table for Robert, who was not hitting well even before the most recent injury.
“We have not gotten that indication,’’ Stearns said of surgery potentially being a possibility.
Jorge Polanco’s recovery from the left Achilles bursitis that’s plagued him much of the season has also been slow.
“We need to get asymptomatic on the ankle,’’ Stearns said. “We have really good days and then it flares up. We need it so he can play every day.”
Lindor is due to get a followup MRI on his strained left calf in the coming days and is out of a walking boot. The Mets won’t have a timeline for the shortstop’s potential return until they get the results of the latest imaging.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
