ATLANTA — J.D. Martinez’s spring progression has hit a snag. The designated hitter has been dealing with lower back tightness while trying to ready himself for the regular season in Port St. Lucie. Martinez received a cortisone shot Tuesday and will be unable to swing a bat for at least the next 3-5 days.
The Mets have been hesitant to put a timeline on his debut since he signed with the team the final week of spring training. Now, a timeline is even more fluid than it was previously, but the Mets still aren’t too concerned.
“I talked to him yesterday. He was like, ‘Hey, I could be there with you guys right now, but I don’t want to be dealing with this throughout the year, so why don’t we just get ahead of things,’” manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday at Truist Park before the second game of a series against the Atlanta Braves. “So we got the doctors to take a look at him, and yeah, we decided to go that route.”
This injury is something Martinez dealt with last season while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. A cortisone shot cleared up the soreness within a few days and he was back in action.
But he won’t be back in action for the big league Mets within a few days. Martinez has not completed his full progression and will need more at-bats with Low-A St. Lucie before the Mets can add him to the major league roster.
Martinez was attempting to accelerate his typical spring plan to be able to join the Mets as soon as possible. But so many at-bats in a short time left him sore over the weekend and gave way to these back issues.
“This guy has had almost 80 at-bats in two weeks,” Martinez said. “I don’t think any position player, when they first report to spring training, goes through that quick of a ramp-up.”
Martinez has taken most of those 80 at-bats in backfield games. He was in the lineup twice for the St. Lucie Mets over the weekend, going 1-for-8 with two walks and a run scored. He was eligible for activation Sunday but told the Mets he needed more time to prepare. The plan was to have him back in the lineup Tuesday and to map out a schedule for him.
Any sort of schedule for playing time is on hold until he’s able to swing a bat again.
“The way he described it was last year when he got [an injection], he was swinging the bat within six days,” Mendoza said. “So we’ll see in the next 48-72 hours how he responds to the treatment and then we’ll go from there. But again, as far as at-bats and things like that, he feels really good timing-wise and [with his] mechanics. So again, I’m not too concerned about this.”
The Mets’ bats have heated up in recent days with their top hitters coming through in key moments. The team has been getting by with rotating the DH almost daily, using DJ Stewart, Starling Marte, Francisco Alvarez and Brandon Nimmo.
SO LONG, TEHERAN
The Julio Teheran experiment lasted all of a few days. The Mets designated Julio Teheran for assignment Tuesday, one day after he gave up four earned runs over 2 2/3 innings. They selected the contract of right-hander Dedniel Nuñez from Triple-A Syracuse.
The decision came down to needing another bullpen arm.
“It’s one of those where it’s not an easy decision, especially with a guy like that with so much experience, but it’s where we are in the bullpen,” Mendoza said. We needed a fresh arm today, somebody that can provide length out of the ‘pen, and we ended up making that decision.”
Nuñez has allowed only one earned run over 3 1/3 innings in three games with Syracuse this season. His fastball has had good life and his slider impressed Mendoza in spring training. It’s the first big-league call-up for the 27-year-old Dominican.
Right-hander José Butto is the likely candidate to take Teheran’s spot in the rotation Saturday against the Kansas City Royals.
Right-hander Michael Tonkin, who was designated Friday to make room for Teheran on the roster, was traded to the Minnesota Twins for cash considerations Tuesday afternoon.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Right-hander Kodai Senga (posterior capsule strain in right shoulder) is throwing all of his pitches from flat ground but has not yet thrown off a mound. … Right-hander Tylor Megill (right shoulder strain) has been sick over the last few days, but Mendoza said things are moving in the right direction with his recovery.
