Mets’ staff banged up but Jose Quintana’s is most concerning

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After a relatively calm first few weeks of camp, a finger, a hamstring and a rib have threatened to disrupt the Mets’ pitching staff before the middle of March.

The Mets are hopeful that Kodai Senga (finger) and Brooks Raley (hamstring) will bounce back quickly, but the concern is higher for Jose Quintana (rib) as the team consults doctors.

Fairly optimistic injury updates were issued Saturday on Senga and Raley, but the injury update that has not come that appears the most serious. Quintana, the middle-of-the-rotation starter who exited a game last Sunday with what the Mets originally termed a “small stress fracture on his fifth rib on his left side,” still is in New York after undergoing additional testing.

General manager Billy Eppler said he believes the Mets will be able to reveal more about Quintana’s situation by Wednesday, which would be 10 days after it was reported.

“We just need to sit down and talk to doctors, and we’ve got to wait for some doctors to be available,” Eppler said before the Mets lost 10-7 to the Nationals at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches on Saturday night.

Asked if the nature of the diagnosis has changed, Eppler declined to answer, saying he wants to wait until the team and Quintana have all the information they need.

The Mets were more direct concerning Senga, who was scratched from his scheduled start Saturday with what the club called “tendinitis at the base of his index finger.”

The 30-year-old from Japan is day to day, and manager Buck Showalter said he “probably” could have pitched if it had been a regular-season game.

According to Showalter, Senga had felt discomfort the last few days. Major League Baseball and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball use a different size ball, which Eppler said has caused similar issues for players with whom he has dealt.

Senga, who twice unleashed his ghost forkball in his initial stateside start Sunday, is set to begin his first season of a five-year, $75 million pact.

“If you just squeeze a baseball really tight for a lot of time and you’re not used to squeezing it that much and that much repetition, [you can feel pain],” Eppler said of Senga, who the Mets still believe will be ready by the start of the season.

David Peterson, who threw a bullpen session Saturday, is seen as the front-runner for a rotation job should Quintana not be ready for Opening Day. If Senga needs to be pushed back, Tylor Megill likely would be the next swingman thrust into the rotation.

The Mets’ bullpen is on steadier ground than their rotation, but Raley gave them a scare. The only left-handed reliever who has been expected to break camp with the Mets, Raley was removed from the Team USA roster at the World Baseball Classic after he sustained a low-grade hamstring strain, the Mets said Saturday.

Raley, a 34-year-old acquired from the Rays in a December trade, experienced tightness in that hamstring after he threw a scoreless inning in an exhibition against the Angels on Thursday.

Low-grade hamstring strains typically take a couple of weeks to clear up. The Mets did not release a timeline for Raley, who is expected to rejoin the team in Port St. Lucie on Tuesday. Showalter said that if everything goes according to plan, Raley will be ready by the March 30 regular-season opener in Miami.

“The picture didn’t really present where we thought it was really problematic,” Eppler said of Raley’s scan.

If Raley is not ready on time, the Mets could open the season without a lefty reliever in their big league bullpen. They have been stretching out both Peterson and Joey Lucchesi as starting depth.

Virtually all of the Mets’ high-end (and even lower-end) relievers are right-handed. Edwin Diaz, Adam Ottavino, Robertson and Drew Smith will break camp with the team as back-end righties.

Stephen Nogosek (who is out of options) and Zach Greene (a Rule 5 pick) are righties who likely will crack the bullpen, too, because otherwise the Mets could lose them.

Among the non-rostered lefties in camp, T.J. McFarland might be the most likely option if the Mets chose to add to the bullpen internally.

McFarland, a 33-year-old who has 10 years of big league experience and pitched for Showalter in Baltimore, has remade his arsenal and now is leaning heavily on a slider that he says has more break.

“I made some changes, and the slider’s moving a lot more,” McFarland said. “It was just a grip change, thought-process change, but immediately after I started throwing it, I gained like 12 to 13 inches of horizontal movement.”