New York Mets: Now that Robinson Cano is back in, who comes out?

Robinson Cano has rejoined the New York Mets after missing a few weeks with a quad injury. Several players have stepped up during his absence, what happens to them now?

Every Major League baseball season is a six month, 162 game grind. Players a team counted on as their cornerstones, get hurt. That gives other players a chance to show management what they can do. The New York Mets, like many other teams, have gone through this situation during the first half of the 2019 season.

Robinson Cano came over in a trade from Seattle this past offseason with much fanfare. He’s been an eight-time all-star at second base during his 15-year career. In 2018, Cano hit .345 with a .845 OPS despite missing half the season due to a broken hand as well as a PED suspension. He overcame both situations and emerged as the same professional hitter he’d always been.

Unfortunately, “Robbie” has gotten off to a slow start as a member of the New York Mets. Going into Monday’s game in Atlanta, he’s batting .240 with three homers over 175 at-bats. Quite a disappointment and far from all-star numbers. After all, Cano is a lifetime .303 hitter with 374 home runs and a whopping .844 OPS.

It was easy to see he was physically struggling in May. Part of the reason for his decline was due to a left quad injury that slowed him down and led to a pair of stints on the injured list. The culmination of his struggles came on May 23 when he reinjured the quad trying to beat out a ground ball. This came after Cano took serious criticism for failing to run out grounders the two days before.

As of Sunday, Cano has come back to the fold. Despite the boo birds at CitiField, he’ll be a fixture in the New York Mets lineup. Baseball is a game of ebbs and flows. Robbie needs to catch a good wave and ride it into the shore (i.e. getting hot for a few weeks). He’s done it many times before and doesn’t seem to be worried about his initial stumbling out of the gates.