Noah Syndergaard to begin rehab assignment

Noah Syndergaard has been out since very early in the season after he partially tore his lat muscle, but he’s set to begin a rehab assignment with a start for the Gulf Coast League Mets on Saturday. Arguably the team’s ace when healthy, Syndergaard had a 3.29 ERA and 1.12 FIP in five starts to begin this season with 10.54 strikeouts and an astonishingly-low 0.66 walks per nine innings.

If all goes smoothly with his rehab assignment, Syndergaard should have enough time to make it back to the major league mound. If so, he’d follow Matt Harvey, who himself is starting on Saturday in Houston, in making it back from a long stint on the disabled list. Syndergaard threw a 25-pitch bullpen today and is scheduled to pitch one inning in his first rehab start, much like Harvey did in his.

As the Mets head into the offseason, it would be nice to see Syndergaard finish the year looking like the healthiest version of himself. In a year that saw the Mets’ starting rotation almost entirely unhealthy and ineffective aside from Jacob deGrom, there aren’t many pitchers who can reasonably be relied upon to be healthy and good for the entirety of the 2018 season at the moment.