Lucas Duda will return to the Mets on Saturday

The Mets continue to get good news today, with Terry Collins announcing that first baseman Lucas Duda will rejoin the team on Saturday. This comes on the heels of the announcement that Jacob deGrom will start on Sunday against the Twins.

Duda will probably only be available to pinch hit initially as he works to regain his form after missing almost four months with a stress fracture in his lower back. After two months he had resumed baseball activities in late July before suffering a setback that seemed likely to end his season in early August.

The Mets received surprisingly good news last week that Duda was ready for live batting practice, and must be elated to add him to the September roster for actual major league baseball games.

While Duda has been on the shelf, James Loney has been filling in with mixed results. On August 3, the day of Duda’s setback, Loney was hitting a very respectable .289/.339/.443. Since then he’s hit a moribund .211/.232/.257 for an overall 2016 batting line of .261/.303/.377. He’s been worse than replacement level, racking up -0.4 bWAR and -0.7 fWAR.