Mets Place Juan Lagares on DL

The Mets will place Juan Lagares on the disabled list and recall Kirk Nieuwenhuis in time for Tuesday night’s game. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before — a player gets off to a hot start and then gets injured, only to come back without that rhythm. Let’s hope that is not the case this time.

Juan Lagares pulled his hamstring running to first base in Monday night’s game. Before that he was leading the team with a .314 average and was tied for the team lead in RBIs with seven. In fact, he has been the only reliable bat in the lineup, negating concerns that he was an all-field, no-hit type of player.

There is no word on how severe the pull is, so we can only hope this will be a 15-day DL stay and that Lagares can return good as new.

The Mets need Juan Lagares because while Nieuwenhuis has been swinging that bat well in Las Vegas (.310 with two home runs in 10 games), he has not shown that he can sustain success at the major league level. And with Curtis Granderson probably out for a couple of games to nurse injuries also suffered Monday night, an outfield of Nieuwenhuis, Andrew Brown and Eric Young just won’t get it done. Chris Young is eligible to come off the DL on Friday, so that should help.

But we are already seeing the lack of depth on this team. That is a direct result of the Mets penny-pinching; instead of having proven veterans that can step in, the Mets have minimum wage players. And that is not a formula for a winning ballclub.