Mets option Corey Oswalt to Las Vegas to make room for Zack Wheeler

The Mets have optioned right-handed pitcher Corey Oswalt back to Triple-A Las Vegas, a move that comes not long after he was called up to give the major league team an extra arm. The team is sending him back to Vegas to make room for the call-up of Zack Wheeler, who is set to start the series finale in Miami—where he made his best major league start—as the Mets attempt to complete a sweep of the Marlins.

Oswalt was warming up late in the Mets’ Tuesday night win, but he never got into the game, as the team took a lead in the ninth and handed things over to Jeurys Familia. Oswalt had a nice year for the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies last year and began this season with Vegas.

As for Wheeler, he had been optioned to Vegas near the end of spring training. But with Jason Vargas still recovering from surgery on his glove hand and Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman now entrenched in the Mets’ bullpen, Wheeler’s very good first start for Vegas was enough to earn him the promotion to make the first start in the fifth slot of the Mets’ major league rotation this season.