By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The tweet came through during the top of the seventh inning: “Anybody want to suit up?”
It was the New York Mets’ billionaire owner Steve Cohen, bemoaning the latest addition to their injury list after Johneshwy Fargas collided with the center field wall in the fourth inning of Monday’s 3-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
Fargas, who sustained a left AC joint sprain and had to leave the game, was the fourth center fielder on the team to suffer an injury this month alone. Overall, the Mets have more than a dozen players on their injured list.
“It’s challenging, yes, losing another guy in the middle of the game,” manager Luis Rojas told reporters after the game. “We ran out of players there.”
The Mets rode a seven-game winning streak earlier this month but have lost seven of their last 10 since.
With the Mets trailing by three runs going into the bottom of the seventh, the restricted crowd of 8,438 at Citi Field briefly got its hopes up as James McCann – playing at first base for the first time in his professional career to fill in for an injured Pete Alonso – launched a 398-foot solo homer.
Pinch hitter Brandon Drury followed that up with another home run in the ninth but the Rockies pitcher struck out McCann to seal the win.
Rojas, who told reporters Fargas would undergo tests on Tuesday, said the team would not be deterred.
“We have the right attitude toward anything that comes our way,” he said. “We’ll have a team out there tomorrow.”
The Mets play the Rockies again on Tuesday in the second of a four-game home series, before hosting the Atlanta Braves for three games.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
