Mets Closer Will Miss Season After Injury During Celebration

MIAMI — A rousing 5-2 victory by Puerto Rico over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday earned the group a spot within the quarterfinals of the World Baseball Traditional. However the elation shortly was despair when the star nearer Edwin Díaz crumbled to the bottom throughout a postgame celebration on the mound.

Díaz’s teammates fashioned a circle round him, hanging their heads or crying. As an alternative of heading to the clubhouse at loanDepot Park to pack up their luggage, Dominican gamers lingered within the dugout, surprised on the scene on the sector. And when Díaz, 28, lastly stood up, he was first carried after which wheeled off the sector, unable to place any weight on his proper leg.

Díaz, who signed a record-setting five-year, $102 million deal this low season to stay with the Mets, sustained a whole tear of the patellar tendon in his proper knee and can endure surgical procedure on Thursday, the group mentioned. Mets Common Supervisor Billy Eppler informed reporters {that a} common timeline for a return is roughly eight months.

“Edwin Diaz is a superb human being and a fierce competitor,” Mets proprietor Steven A. Cohen wrote on Twitter. “All of us on the Mets are shaken however decided to maintain our quest for a fantastic season. We want Edwin a speedy restoration.”

Díaz’s damage got here after a extremely anticipated do-or-die matchup between two baseball powerhouses, which had lived as much as expectations. The groups performed in entrance of a thunderous sellout crowd of 36,025 folks, and Puerto Rico, the runners-up within the earlier two installments of the event in 2013 and ’17, knocked out the Dominican Republic, a group of superstars that was one of many favorites.

However Díaz’s collapse erased these feelings and renewed the damage issues that encompass the event, which is held each 4 years and lasts two weeks throughout Main League Baseball’s spring coaching. It additionally dealt an enormous blow to the Mets, a group that’s getting into the 12 months with World Sequence aspirations.

“As excited as we have been in regards to the recreation and all that, it’s one among our brothers,” mentioned Puerto Rico heart fielder Enrique Hernández, a Boston Pink Sox participant.

A number of prime gamers, a lot of them pitchers, declined to take part within the W.B.C. or have been denied permission to play by their M.L.B. groups. Some cited damage issues — present or potential — as their purpose. Groups typically fear that gamers must ramp up sooner than common earlier than the 162-game common season to compete in video games that matter way more than spring coaching exhibition contests. (Gamers are required to be coated by insurance coverage to compete within the W.B.C.)

Díaz didn’t seem to harm himself whereas pitching on Wednesday. He fired his trademark 100-mile-per-hour fastballs and depraved sliders to strike out the facet within the ninth inning and didn’t seem like in ache earlier than the celebration started.

After the ultimate out, Díaz hugged his brother, Alexis, a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds. They have been joined by different teammates, and with their arms round one another, they bounced up and down in a reasonably tame celebration. However then Díaz collapsed to the bottom, and teammates signaled instantly for the coaching workers to return out.

Off to the facet, Puerto Rico captain Francisco Lindor, a fellow Met, appeared on the floor whereas hunched over. Robinson Canó, the Dominican infielder and former Met, held his fingers on his head. Tears streamed down Díaz’s brother’s face.

Puerto Rico Supervisor Yadier Molina mentioned he didn’t see what occurred to Díaz as a result of he was hugging his coaches within the dugout after the ultimate out. When he appeared up, he was shocked to see Díaz on the bottom.

“While you see a man that works so exhausting like Edwin, whenever you see him on the bottom like that, it simply is gloomy,” he mentioned.

Molina added later about postgame celebrations, “If something goes to occur, it’ll occur. Celebrations exist ever since I used to be born. It’s God’s will. I simply hope that Edwin goes to be OK, that his household is OK and we’re praying for him.”

Behind eight pitchers, Puerto Rico neutralized a star-studded Dominican Republic offense and performed cleaner protection. On the plate, Puerto Rico designated hitter Christian Vázquez homered, whereas Hernández and Lindor every added two hits. With the win, Puerto Rico superior to the quarterfinals because the runner-up of Pool D and can face Mexico, which received Pool C, on Friday in Miami.

Within the tunnel outdoors the Puerto Rico clubhouse after the sport, Díaz’s brother and oldsters, in tears, have been escorted away.

“Other than being the perfect nearer within the recreation proper now, and being an enormous a part of this group, Sugar is among the glue guys in that clubhouse,” Hernández mentioned, referring to Díaz by his nickname. He famous that Díaz, who saved 32 video games for the Mets every of the previous two seasons, helped manage dinners and gatherings for the Puerto Rican group.

“He has a extremely large checking account, however his coronary heart is means greater,” Hernández mentioned, including later in regards to the damage, “The truth that it was him, it’s an enormous blow in additional methods than one.”