Jason Vargas will undergo surgery, miss first week of season

This morning we learned that Jason Vargas has a non-displaced fracture of the hamate bone in his glove hand, after being hit by a comebacker during a spring training start. Today, he saw a hand specialist to determine the best course of action.

The team announced that doctors have recommended surgery to remove the fractured hamate bone from Vargas’s non-throwing hand. The surgery will happen on Tuesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. While this may bring back traumatic images of Wilmer Flores or Giancarlo Stanton dealing with this injury, Adam Rubin pointed out that Drew Storen had the same surgery in his non-throwing hand in 2015 when he was with the Nationals and only needed about two weeks before returning to the mound.

It seems that Vargas will follow a similar course. He is expected to start throwing five days after the surgery, which would probably mean the he would start the season on the DL, but perhaps only miss one or two times through the rotation.

The implication of this, of course, is that Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler, who had been battling for the final rotation spot before Vargas’ injury, will presumably both start the season in the rotation. The dream of many Mets fans—one time through the rotation with Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, and Zack Wheeler—may come true after all, even if they aren’t all the versions of themselves we imagined.

As usual, injuries seem to have made decisions for the Mets this spring. Let’s just hope the buck stops here and Vargas recovers quickly.