Clay Holmes left Friday night with a fractured right fibula after taking a 111 mph line drive off his right leg in the fourth inning of the Mets' 5-2 loss to the New York Yankees at Citi Field. He stayed in long enough to finish the fourth and record another out in the fifth before walking off after a pitch to Jazz Chisholm Jr. told him something was wrong.
An X-ray later confirmed the break, and Carlos Mendoza said Holmes would be out a long time. Mendoza called it a huge blow, and the reaction around the clubhouse matched the scale of it. Holmes entered the night with a 1.86 ERA, and the Mets were 5-3 in his starts before Friday, while they were 13-22 in games started by everyone else. He had been their most reliable starter this season, and the four runs he allowed in 4 1/3 innings were the most he had given up in a start this year.
The injury lands at the worst possible moment for a rotation that was already stretched. The Mets had been hoping Sean Manaea could eventually return to the starting mix, but he had a 6.56 ERA in the long-man role. Jonah Tong is already on the 40-man roster in Triple-A Syracuse, and Jack Wenninger has put together a 1.08 ERA through seven starts and 33 1/3 innings there. Neither option fully replaces a pitcher who had steadied the staff as the Mets tried to keep pace in the season's biggest games.
Juan Soto, who has seen Holmes around the club as often as anyone, said the injury simply sucked and called him one of the hardest workers he has seen in his career. Spencer Jones, whose low line drive struck Holmes, said it said a lot about Holmes that he went back out there in the next inning with a broken leg, adding that it was incredible. Jones reached first when the ball ricocheted into foul territory, but the lasting image from the play was Holmes finishing his work anyway.
That is the part that now hangs over the Mets: not just that they lost Game 1 of the Subway Series, but that they lost the pitcher who had become the most dependable starter in a rotation already missing pieces. Four of the Mets' nine Opening Day starters were on the injured list, including Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert Jr. and Francisco Alvarez, who was expected back in about two months. For a team that already needed every healthy arm it could find, Holmes' injury changes the math immediately.
