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New York Mets second baseman Neil Walker will undergo season-ending back surgery as he continues to battle pain related to a herniated disk.

Continue for updates.

Walker Comments on Surgery

Thursday, Sept. 1

Walker said he will have a three-month recovery following his surgery, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Walker indicated that he cannot feel a toe because a disk in his back is pressing against a nerve, per James Wagner of the New York Times.

According to Marc Carig of Newsday, after getting multiple opinions, Walker said playing through the injury would exacerbate the issue.

Walker, who missed four straight games and eight total in August, has been dealing with a herniated disk that has caused him considerable discomfort. According to the New York Post‘s Howie Kussoy, the herniated disk caused “weakness in one of his legs and numbness in one of his feet.”

“It’s been on and off all year,” manager Terry Collins added, per Kussoy. “As Neil puts it, he has grinded it out, the discomfort level. Sometimes it goes up, and when it goes back down he needs rest until the strength comes back up again.”

Walker’s Injury Comes at Unfortunate Time for Mets

The news comes as a blow to the Mets, who are still hanging tough in the National League wild-card race with the regular season drawing to a close.

Before hitting the shelf, Walker batted .282 with 23 home runs, 55 RBI and a .347 on-base percentage.

The Mets should continue to employ Wilmer Flores as a stopgap solution at second base.

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Yoenis Cespedes is just one guy on a 25-man roster, and he’s still feeling a quadriceps injury that put him on the disabled list Aug. 4. It’s not fair to expect him to carry the New York Mets to October.

But darn it, he’s going to try.

This has been apparent for the week-and-a-half that Cespedes has been off the DL, as he’s come back with his bat ablaze. In Monday’s 2-1 win over the Miami Marlins, a key foe in the National League wild-card race, Cespedes played the hero at Citi Field by slamming a walk-off home run in the 10th inning.

It was a classic Cespedes dinger, so the thing to do is drop your jaw now so as not to be caught off guard by how hard the ball was hit and how far it flew:

With that, Cespedes delivered the Mets’ seventh win in nine games. Their 67-64 record is tied with the Marlins at two-and-a-half games off the pace for the NL’s second wild card. They haven’t won anything yet, but this will do for a sign of life from a club that was under .500 as recently as Aug. 20.

Cue manager Terry Collins with the on-the-nose quote, as he told Anthony DiComo of MLB.com after the game: “Cespedes is one of those guys that people pay to see him play. He’s a special guy.”

More to the point, Cespedes is a special guy New York is paying $27.5 million precisely so he can do things like this. And he’s delivered. With a .949 OPS and 27 home runs, he’s just as good as he was in his 57 games (.942 OPS, 17 home runs) with the Mets last season.

And just as that stretch helped propel them to their first postseason since 2006, the veteran left fielder seems to be trying to do it all over again. After going a quiet 1-for-4 in his first game off the DL in San Francisco on Aug. 19, Cespedes has hit .406 with five home runs in eight games since.

These numbers don’t misrepresent how well he’s swinging the stick. We’re comparing a big sample size to a small one, but it is in the interest of what-the-heckery that we’ll turn to Baseball Savant for a look at Cespedes’ exit velocity before and after his DL stint:

• Before: 92.9 mph
• After: 96.2 mph

Put another way, Cespedes is on an exit-velocity binge that would make even Nelson Cruz or Giancarlo Stanton blush. To boot, that bolded figure doesn’t even include the rocket he hit to walk it off Monday night. That’ll only increase it, as Cespedes mashed that ball at roughly the speed of sound.

It’s all good for now, but the specter of the Mets plummeting back to mediocrity can’t be ignored. Things are set up to lean one way or another: Either Cespedes’ broad shoulders can bear the weight of the team, or the injury bug will swallow him and the rest of the squad whole.

The latter is a Godzilla-level clear and present danger. Cespedes is part of a lineup that won’t get David Wright or Lucas Duda back, and it’s also feeling nagging injuries to Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker. Cespedes is among the walking wounded, as concern over his tender quad led Collins to sit him Sunday, when the Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies.

“Any time you have the expanded rosters, it helps you, it protects you, because you’re banged up,” Collins said, per DiComo. “But let me tell you something: If Yoenis Cespedes goes down, that’s an awful lot to ask for Brandon Nimmo or Michael Conforto to make up for him. If you don’t have your good players, your best players, and they don’t play good, it’s tough to replace them.”

Monday’s game offered a hint that Cespedes’ quad may render him just as likely to taketh away as giveth. The one run the Marlins scored came on a Xavier Scruggs double that Cespedes was unable to catch up with.

If Cespedes’ defense is compromised, that’s yet another hit to the Mets’ run prevention. With Matt Harvey gone for the season, Jon Niese on the DL and Steven Matz still working his way back from a shoulder problem, a once-heralded pitching staff has grown thin. Hence its 4.69 ERA in August.

So far, though, Cespedes’ hot bat is having a larger impact than his potentially compromised glove. And looking ahead, the Mets aren’t exactly tasked with tracking down the 1927 New York Yankees or, for that matter, the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

As expected, the struggle has been real for the Stanton-less Marlins. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who were a game-and-a-half ahead of the Mets as of this writing, are hot, but they’re facing depth issues reminiscent of what’s going on in Queens, New York. Leading the charge in the NL wild-card race are the San Francisco Giants, who have been terrible since the All-Star break, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who are seemingly immune to any kind of consistency.

This is a winnable race for any of the teams involved. And while it’s not the same as saying it’s the favorite in the bunch, any team with a hot Cespedes is a team with a chance.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Earlier this year, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were the subjects of an ESPN 30 for 30 that portrayed their downfall from burgeoning superstars to troubled drug addicts. According to the now-clean Strawberry, Gooden’s most recent relapse leaves his life in danger.

“I have to try something before he’s dead,” Strawberry told John Harper of the New York Daily News on Saturday as part of a public plea to get his friend help.

The New York Yankees have offered to pay for Gooden’s treatment if he accepts, Harper reported on Tuesday.

Strawberry previously expressed concern for Gooden after the former ace failed to show up to an appearance the two were scheduled to make last week in New York. Gooden denied Strawberry’s concern for him was merited, calling it “unreal.”

“I am fine, just finishing up some minor health issues,” Gooden said in a text message, per Harper, Peter Botte and Denis Slattery of the Daily News.

Gooden expanded on his health in an appearance on The Joe Piscopo Show on WNYM-AM (via Chuck Schilken of the Los Angeles Times).

“I am healthy,” Gooden said, per Perez. “I do have a drug problem. I’ve been an addict most my life. I am an addict. I don’t hide from anything. Anything I’m doing wrong, I’ll be the first to tell you.”

Gooden denied using cocaine in the last few years in a press release, per Mike Axisa of CBS Sports:

I had never failed to be there for Darryl Strawberry. I don’t do cocaine and have not for years.

Last Thursday night, I was unable to attend an event at WFAN with Darryl. There were plenty of times when Darryl was unable to attend events as well. No one, most of all me, made any big deal out of Darryl’s absence, nor should they have had.

But Darryl has always made our differences personal, going back to our days with the Mets.

I had hoped we could keep these differences between us. But Darryl could not manage to do that. I am sorry for his inability to show more character and strength. While I was there for him, he obviously was never there for me.

Strawberry, who has been sober for more than a decade after years of alcohol and drug addiction, said Gooden is in a state of denial because of his cocaine addiction. Harper wrote Strawberry has “no doubt” Gooden is again battling through a relapse:

He’s a complete junkie-addict. I’ve been trying behind the scenes to talk to him and get him to go for help, but he won’t listen. He thinks he can manipulate and BS his way through everything. His son called me to beg me to help his dad before he dies.

The condition Doc is in, it’s bad, it’s horrible. It’s like cocaine poison. I feel like I’ve got to get it out there because nobody else is doing anything to help him, and it might be the only way to stop him.

Janice Roots, who dated Gooden for four years until leaving him in February, confirmed Strawberry’s account. She categorized Gooden as a “cocaine monster”:

I don’t even know if he realizes what he’s doing. He turns into a different person. He’s a great guy who takes care of his family members, but being around him, there were times when it was just a very toxic, dangerous environment.

I felt helpless to do anything. I finally left because to sit there and watch somebody kill himself was devastating.

Gooden, who turns 52 in November, has dealt with a cocaine problem since his Cy Young-winning heights in the 1980s. He’s had numerous legal problems as a result, including a seven-month prison sentence in 2006 following a probation violation.

Gooden has not been in trouble with the law since a 2010 DWI charge.

Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.

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New York Mets pitcher Steven Matz was held out of an Aug. 19 start against the San Francisco Giants due to a shoulder injury that was determined to be tightness. He is on the disabled list and it is unclear when he will return to the mound.

Continue for updates.

Matz Placed on 15-Day DL

Monday, Aug. 22

The Mets announced the roster move, noting Rob Gsellman was recalled in his place.

Matz’s Diagnosis Revealed

Monday, Aug. 22

James Wagner of the New York Times reported that Matz’s examination showed “no structural damage.” He was diagnosed with a tight shoulder.

Matz to Miss Start with Shoulder ‘Discomfort’

Friday, Aug. 19

According to Adam Rubin of ESPN, Matz will be replaced by Seth Lugo on Friday.

Matz called the injury “discomfort” and said he is not concerned about it being a long-term issue.

Per Rubin, Matz also described how he picked up the ailment that will keep him off the mound Friday:

I was throwing on flat ground and I felt a little twinge in my shoulder. It was bothering me a little bit. And then, next day, I was throwing and I was still feeling it, so I didn’t throw my bullpen, hoping it would get better. I was just kind of taking it day by day. There’s some discomfort in there. I think you go through stuff all the time throughout a season, but it didn’t respond the way I’d like it to.

Matz Has Emerged as Key Piece to Mets Roster 

The 25-year-old lefty is enjoying a strong season with a 9-8 record, 3.40 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and 129 strikeouts in 132.1 innings.

Every win is key for the Mets at this point in the season as they attempt to close a considerable gap in the standings, and being without Matz could go a long way toward preventing them from playing postseason baseball in 2016.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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New York Mets first baseman Lucas Duda remains on the disabled list with a back injury.

Continue for updates.

Duda Out for at Least 30 More Days

Wednesday, August 3

Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reported that Duda suffered a setback in his recovery from a back injury:

Duda led the Mets in home runs for the second year in a row in 2015. His .486 slugging percentage was the highest of his career, as he hit 27 homers, 33 extra-base hits and drove in 73 runs. The 30-year-old also played in just 135 games, making his production more impressive.

Duda hasn’t slugged at the same rate in 2016, though injuries have hampered his season. He has seven home runs and 19 RBI in 145 plate appearances.

Despite his slight drop-off offensively, the lack of an ideal replacement presents a major problem for the Mets in the event the left-handed slugger misses the rest of the season. James Loney has played decently in place of Duda at first base, hitting .284 with six home runs and 21 RBI.

And the recent addition of Jay Bruce will bolster the middle of the lineup, especially considering the Mets are now without their two starters at the infield corners to open the season, Duda and David Wright. Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera and Juan Lagares are also on the disabled list, leaving the Mets fairly thin in their everyday lineup at the moment.

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The New York Yankees (53-53) and New York Mets (55-51) split the first two games of the Subway Series at Citi Field and will play the next two at Yankee Stadium starting Wednesday.

The Mets bounced back from a 6-5 loss on Monday with a 7-1 victory against the Yankees on Tuesday, and they are listed as -125 road favorites (wager $125 to win $100) at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark with Steven Matz on the mound Wednesday.

The 25-year-old Matz (8-7, 3.35 ERA) is a veteran compared to his 25-year-old counterpart Chad Green (1-2, 4.56), who gets the call for the Yankees after making seven appearances during his rookie year, including four in relief and three starts.

The Mets have lost four of the past five games Matz has started, as he surrendered a season-high 10 hits and two runs in six innings of a 6-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies last time out at home on Friday with one walk and five strikeouts. Matz does have a winning record on the road, though, going 5-3 with a 3.35 ERA in nine starts.

Meanwhile, Green has not made a start since July 8 against the Cleveland Indians away from home. He gave up a career-worst seven runs and five hits, including four home runs, to the Indians in 4.1 innings with two walks and six strikeouts.

In his past three appearances, he has scattered just six hits over 8.1 scoreless innings of relief with three walks and seven strikeouts, dropping his ERA from 7.04 in the process.

The Yankees have won seven of the last 10 meetings overall after dropping six in a row to the Mets, according to the Odds Shark MLB Database. The over has cashed in three straight following an under run of 4-2-1 in the previous seven.

Yoenis Cespedes of the Mets is expected to be in the starting lineup as the designated hitter after getting a single in his lone pinch-hit at-bat Tuesday that also scored a run. Cespedes has been dealing with a quad injury that has limited him at times over the past month.

The newest member of the Mets, Jay Bruce, went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his debut Tuesday following his arrival in a trade from the Cincinnati Reds.

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NEW YORK — If you try something once and it works, you’re going to try again.

Jay Bruce isn’t Yoenis Cespedes. The 2016 New York Mets are not the 2015 Mets, and the National League East isn’t the same as it was last year, either.

But on another deadline day, the Mets could dream. Mets fans could dream. Mets players could dream.

“There’s been a lot of talk in our clubhouse the last few days: ‘Are we going to get someone?'” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “Well, we did.”

Well, they did. They got Bruce from the Cincinnati Reds, a year to the deadline day after getting Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers.

Now they have too many corner outfielders and no real center fielder. They have too many injuries and not enough certainty.

They know that. They admit that.

But even with Matt Harvey out for the season, the Mets have a starting rotation they can win with. They may not have a great chance at catching the Washington Nationals in the NL East (Baseball Prospectus put it at 5 percent as of Monday afternoon), but even if this is just about the wild card, they owed it to themselves to give it a shot.

It’s about more than that, of course.

The Mets weren’t going to give up on this year, and they certainly weren’t going to give up on next year. Finding offense was going to be an issue this winter, too, which is why Mets general manager Sandy Alderson kept emphasizing they have Bruce under control in 2017 (with an affordable $13 million club option).

“We would not have done this deal without an extra year of control,” Alderson said.

The extra year means this isn’t as much of an all-in move as the Cespedes trade was last year. So does the cost, because even though the Mets liked second baseman Dilson Herrera (“He’s a little like Devon Travis,” a National League scout said Monday), he’s not as exciting as Michael Fulmer, the pitcher they gave up for what could have been two months of Cespedes.

This one was Herrera and 19-year-old left-hander Max Wotell for a year-and-a-half of Bruce. Alderson acknowledged the deal changed at one point Monday (Marc Carig of Newsday reported Brandon Nimmo was taken out of the trade because of medical concerns), but the price wasn’t prohibitive for a player who leads the National League with 80 RBI.

“He’s been a run producer,” Alderson said. “His presence in the middle of the lineup changes things. It wasn’t clear to me how long Cespedes was going to get pitches to hit with the rest of the lineup around him.”

Some people question the concept of protection in a batting order, but Alderson obviously doesn’t. Neither does Collins, who was quick to say Bruce will hit right behind Cespedes.

“I’m telling you, I think he’s going to make a huge impact here,” Collins said.

Bruce can be an impact guy, as he has shown in eight-plus years with the Reds. He’s been an impact guy this season. He’s always been streaky, but when he’s going good, he’s one of the most dangerous hitters in the game.

He also has months like August 2015, when he hit .150 with 29 strikeouts in 113 at-bats.

Bruce is hot right now, with six home runs and 14 RBI in his last seven games. Compare that to the Mets, who as a team have 17 RBI in their last seven games.

“Had we been able to score some runs this week, we’d be in better shape right now,” Collins said.

A year ago, the Mets were 28th in baseball in runs scored before the All-Star break. They were third in baseball in runs scored after the break. It wasn’t all Cespedes, but there’s no question adding him changed their lineup and changed their season.

Can Bruce do the same thing?

For the Mets, it was worth finding out. It was worth trying to fit him into their lineup, even though he’s a corner outfielder and the other guys they want to play (Cespedes, Curtis Granderson and Michael Conforto) are also corner outfielders.

Collins will have to figure it out. Maybe Conforto can handle center field. Maybe Cespedes’ sore right quadriceps (which kept him out of the lineup again Monday) will heal enough that he can return to center field.

Maybe it works out. Remember, Cespedes wasn’t a center fielder when the Mets acquired him a year ago, but he ended up starting there 39 times and 10 more times in the postseason.

It’s worth the chance again. Outfield defense could sink the Mets in these final two months, but a lack of offense was the bigger problem they had to solve. Once the Milwaukee Brewers weren’t interested in what they had to offer for Jonathan Lucroy, Bruce was by far the best option they could get.

“All we can do is acquire as many good players as we can to maybe have that magic again,” Alderson said.

It’s not a perfect fit. It’s not a perfect deal.

But for a team still good enough to dream, it was a trade worth making.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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The New York Mets traded for Cincinnati Reds traded outfielder Jay Bruce on Monday in exchange for Dilson Herrera and Max Wotell, the team announced.

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball first reported the deal.

“The only thing to do now is go play baseball,” Bruce told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. “I’m a baseball player, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Bruce enjoyed a slight uptick in production last year after a lackluster 2014 season that saw him post a career-low .281 on-base percentage in 137 games. In 2015, he lowered his strikeout rate, increased his walk rate and hit 26 home runs, right in line with his career average.

The veteran outfielder previously found himself on the trade block leading up to the deadline last July. He didn’t end up getting moved at the time and said afterward that a trade would have felt weird, as John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer noted.

“It’s nice that other teams are interested in you,” Bruce said. “But on the other hand, you grow up in this organization. This is all I know. This is like family to me.”

This move is a bit atypical from Cincinnati’s perspective. Rarely do you see a 29-year-old player in the middle of his prime with a trio of 30-homer seasons on his resume get traded. That’s especially true when he’s under team control for another season, as is the case here, per Spotrac.

Those circumstances suggest the Reds are trying to maximize the return with Bruce enjoying a much improved 2016 campaign.

The trade is a reasonable investment considering his power-hitting history, age and contract situation. It’s not like the Mets are acquiring a high-risk, high-reward player on a rental basis and giving up an elite prospect to do it. This is a stable move, and Bruce will give the Mets another power hitter in the middle of the lineup.

With the move for Bruce, it’s clear the Mets are going all-in to make a deep postseason run.

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New York Mets shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera exited Sunday’s game against the Colorado Rockies after suffering a strained left patellar tendon, per ESPN.com’s Adam Rubin.  

Continue for updates.

Johnson Fills in For Cabrera

Sunday, July 31

Kelly Johnson replaced Cabrera in the lineup, with Wilmer Flores moving from third to short.

Cabrera suffered the same injury back in March. He was out for a little over two weeks before returning in spring training.

According to Rubin, Sunday’s injury came as the 30-year-old was crossing home plate on a triple by Neil Walker. Mets trainer Ray Ramirez and bench Dick Scott helped him get back to the dugout.

Cabrera entered the game batting .255 with 13 home runs and 33 runs batted in. According to FanGraphs, his 0.9 WAR was tied for fourth on the team among position players.

The timing of the injury is especially bad since Jose Reyes is on the disabled list with a left intercostal strain. He isn’t expected back until potentially Aug. 11. Whereas Reyes would’ve been the natural replacement for Cabrera, manager Terry Collins will likely look to Flores.

The bulk of Flores’ season has come at the hot corner, but he played 103 games last year at shortstop, per Baseball-Reference.com.

Defensively, Cabrera’s absence shouldn’t create too many issues for the Mets. The problems will come offensively, as Johnson—who has three homers and six RBI—is unlikely to provide the same kind of power at the plate.

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After leaving Saturday’s contest against the Colorado Rockies in the sixth inning, New York Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes is not in the lineup Sunday due to a quad injury.

Continue for updates.

Mets Hoping to Avoid Cespedes DL Stint

Sunday, July 31

According to Marc Carig of Newsday, Cespedes was held out due to “precautionary reasons.”

Per Maria Guardado of NJ.com, the Mets are hoping to avoid placing Cespedes on the disabled list despite the nagging ailment.

The 30-year-old Cuban is in the midst of another All-Star season, hitting .291 with 22 home runs and 58 RBI in the heart of New York’s batting order.

He spearheaded the Mets’ surprising run to the World Series last season, hitting .287 with 17 homers and 44 RBI in 57 regular-season games down the stretch after coming over in a trade from the Detroit Tigers in 2015.

The Mets are in danger of missing the playoffs, as they are 7.5 games behind the Washington Nationals in the NL East and 2.5 games behind the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals for the final wild-card spot in the National League.

New York is just 3-7 in its past 10 games, and it ranks 29th in Major League Baseball in runs scored.

That number isn’t likely to improve if Cespedes continues to miss games, and it will put added pressure on replacement options like Alejandro De Aza and Brandon Nimmo to produce in his absence.

Cespedes has been one of the best pure hitters in baseball over the past two seasons, and New York has a significant uphill climb toward the playoffs if he is unable to get closer to 100 percent in the near future.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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