BOSTON — Within hours of walking off the field in the sixth inning of Saturday’s 5-4 victory over the Red Sox, Mets outfielder Louis Gillorm was wearing walking shoes and using crutches to navigate the cramped confines of the visiting Fenway Park club. Frustrated by his situation, Gullorme tossed the crutches into his locker before discussing his injury, which would cost him at least the rest of July.
The normally confident Mets quarterback strained his right calf during a freak play, when Rafael Devers hit him with a blip in his direction. The ball jumped into Guillorme’s chest and slid to his right. As he was chasing after her, he felt a pull in his calf, which made him fall onto the grass. Only after striking a blow did Gillorm rise to his feet and walk off the field under his own power, albeit with a greatly limping.
The Mets placed Guillorme on the 10-day injured list and called up veteran player Danny Mendick to replace him on the active list.
“I’m not happy about it,” said Gillorm, who missed nearly a month last season with a strained left groin. “It is what it is, but I’m not happy with it.”
The injury comes as Gillorm begins to play a more important role for the Mets, with quarterback Starling Mart being on the injured list while Tommy Pham has a minor groin injury. The absence of those two teams prompted the Mets to regularly use Jeff McNeil in the outfield, with Gillorm filling in at second base. He had started two of the Mets’ last three games and figured he would continue in that role at least until Pham returned.
Instead, the other Mets will become the beneficiaries of that playing time. The team could have called on No. 2 prospect Ronny Mauricio, who continues to split his Triple-A Syracuse defense reps between second base, shortstop, and left field. Offensively, Mauricio produced . 852 OPS with 15 homers in 84 games at Triple-A. But the team chose to give Mauricio a little more spice and instead called up Mendyk, who went 0-for-7 in four games with the big club earlier this season. Mendick held a .758 OPS at Syracuse, including a mark of .762 in July.
As for Guillorme, he is expected to remain with the team this weekend before he gets tested early next week in New York. An MRI would eventually reveal the severity of his fatigue, giving the Mets an idea of how much time he should expect to miss.
“At the moment, it feels like tightness,” Gillorm said. “We’ll see once we get everything done.”
