Mets starter Griffin Canning had to be helped off the field in the third inning of tonight’s win over the Braves. He injured his left leg in what initially seemed to be a small, harmless hop after a Nick Allen chopper to shortstop (video via Awful Announcing). Replay showed Canning’s foot appear to buckle as he hit the ground, immediately raising concern about a potential Achilles tear.
The team initially announced that Canning was being evaluated for a left ankle injury and was headed for an MRI. The club won’t provide a specific diagnosis until the imaging results come back, but manager Carlos Mendoza confirmed postgame that they believe it is an Achilles injury. While there’s no timeline yet, Canning’s season certainly seems to be in jeopardy.
Canning has been a surprisingly important piece of the Mets pitching staff. He signed for $4.25MM as a free agent after being let go by the Angels (in a salary dump trade) and Braves (via non-tender) earlier in the offseason. The former second-round pick might’ve opened the season in long relief had everyone been healthy. Injuries to Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas and Paul Blackburn pushed him into the starting five. He ran with the opportunity.
The 29-year-old Canning took a 3.91 earned run average across 73 2/3 innings into tonight’s start. His abbreviated outing dropped that to a 3.77 mark. He has gotten ground-balls half the time while recording a league average 21.3% strikeout rate. The strikeout rate is up nearly four percentage points while he has cut his ERA by about a run and a half relative to his final season with the Angels. The Mets encouraged Canning to use his slider a little more often than he had with the Halos to positive results.
While Canning struggled last season, he’d shown the potential to pitch at the back of a rotation earlier in his career. He’d struggled to rack up many innings because of various injuries, though. He lost a good portion of ’21 and the entire following year to a stress reaction in his lower back. Canning also missed time with elbow soreness at the beginning of his career. He had avoided the injured list for the past year and a half.
The Mets have lost three starters this month. Tylor Megill is going to miss at least a month with an elbow sprain, and they’ll need to closely monitor his progress to try avoid any setbacks. Kodai Senga will be down for a couple weeks with a hamstring strain. Canning’s injury seems the most severe of all.
Montas returned to make his season debut this week. Manaea is expected back next week despite a brief setback after he received an injection to treat a loose body in his elbow. Blackburn, who was briefly the subject of trade chatter when he seemed to be seventh on the depth chart, is now entrenched in the rotation behind Clay Holmes and David Peterson. The Mets will go with Peterson, Blackburn and Montas for this weekend’s series in Pittsburgh. They’re off on Monday and could activate Manaea to take Canning’s rotation spot next week. Blade Tidwell and Justin Hagenman are candidates for a spot start if they want to give Manaea a few extra days.
The Mets probably would have been in the rotation market at the deadline even if Canning were healthy. There’s a lot of risk in counting on Megill to make a smooth return from an elbow injury. Montas got through five scoreless innings in his season debut but had been knocked around on his minor league rehab stint.
Canning will reach six-plus service years and return to free agency this offseason. A significant Achilles injury would threaten a good portion of his ’26 availability and would obviously deal a huge hit to his market value.
Absolutely terrible!! He’s been doing a nice job in the middle of the rotation. Hopefully it’s not a season-ending injury
It looked bad, but looks can be deceiving, and I’m that’s true in this case.
Hoping you’re right, Von, but it didn’t look good.
Achilles. His season is over. Major rehabilitation process. Maybe Mets can re-sign him for 2026 second half, perhaps 2027 option.
Have to think it wasn’t a rupture, as those tend to have an audible pop.
We will see the prognosis.
I know he was good this year but he was really starting to come down to earth. I mean he has a 1.41 Whip. It’s not probably as troubling of a loss as it seems tho obviously the Mets can’t afford to lose anyone out of the rotation.
Bartolo Colon time!
Shoot, Darren Dreifort time even!
The Mets don’t deserve such greatness.
You never know the way the pitchers are dropping.
Jamie Moyer is waiting.
Kyle Gibson
Hell no
Looked very similar to Soroka’s first. Really hope that’s not the case. Feel bad for the guy as it was looking like he found a home.
That’s too bad for GC. His back plagued him for years with the Angels. Hopefully this is just a blip.
Can never have enough starting pitching. Problem is the Mets are running through their reserves. Sux for Canning.
He Gone
Let’s just be honest and not cling to vain hope. He’s done for the year.
Terrible blow. Timeline for Senga/Manaea/Megill returns a week or so after all star break? Good win with essentially a bullpen game. Team wasn’t as great as it looked when it whipped Philadelphia 3 straight earlier in season and isn’t as bad as it looked last week
Manaea will supposedly be back in about a week. Senga maybe a couple of weeks. Not sure about Megill but that would be two starters in the next couple of weeks. Manaea, Senga, Peterson, Holmes, Montas. Plus Blackburn.
Manaea currently scheduled to take another rehab start on July 1 or 2, and come back 5 or 6 days later. That schedule could line him up to take Canning’s spot in the rotation, but someone will have to fill in that spot the next time thru the rotation.
Senga may start a rehab sometime next week. And no definitive timeframe on Megill, but it was first reported that he would be shut down completely for 4 to 5 weeks – he last pitched June 15. So with rehab, he would probably be a few weeks after the ASB, and maybe even after the deadline – and thats assuming all goes well and no setbacks. .
All you had to see was the calf pop when he made that step to know it’s definitely an Achilles injury. Seen it too much lately with basketball players this recent postseason. Gonna be a long rehab process
Durant
Ouch. Not good.
Time to see Nolan McLean.
Oof. I was happy to see him do well with the Mets. Hope this isn’t super serious.
Time for Mets to show at deadline whether they are serious about this year or not. If they’re serious, then it’s time to trade from among their best prospects in order to obtain a starter, a reliever, and an outfielder who can hit for average. If they are not serious, then they should be sellers ; no point in going to the playoffs with the current roster
They have two high quality starters retuning from injury very soon. They don’t need to trade for a starter unless a top notch one is available.
1- First let me say that I generally share your opinion. I don’t give a bleep about a playoff appearance, or even an LCS. I want a team that can consistently, sustainably compete for a WS title. Not make a fake run that dries up and goes backwards in the succeeding years. And to do that, they need to continue adding to a farm system that is still not ready tp produce high-level major league players when the big club needs them. 2- That said, I’m on the fence here. Last year’s team was 41-41 at this point, and that was only after getting hot in June. I still think they overachieved on making the playoffs at all. then overachieved again in going to the LCS. Both of which could have easily not happened had a play or two gone the other way. Stearns had a weaker hand at this point last year, and he managed to supplement it just enough to make it work. He’s got, arguably, more to work with this year. It’d be fun to see him work some magic again, while we buy the farm system another year to further develop the players that are already there and rising.
3- I know trade deadline gets fans excited. But talks is still a bit premature about what, exactly, they should do 5 weks from now. Thats enough time to get Senga, Manaea, and Montas together in the rotation for the first time all year. Enough time to get a better handle on whether Mauricio and Baty will pick up their hitting, or need to go down. Enough time for Alvarez to get back. And add Raley back into the pen. And Vientos and Winker to come back and lengthen the lineup. Maybe enough to decide that McLean is, in fact, ready to contribute at this level. 4- As for how serious the Mets ae. Stearns has said on several occasions that he believes it should be the goal of all teams to compete each and every year. but the real goal is to build sustainable, long-term competitiveness. It would be like threading a needle, and sometimes those two goals conflict with each other. but this org has the resources to do it. Thus far, he has done just that, and I expect that is what he will do again this year. Acquire some supplemental players by trading from the second tier of prospects, thus maintaining a chance to compete without undermining the process of building up the farm.
@yellow
This comment is enough for a mute.
Mets undefeated at breaking pitches
might be time to look at Trevor Bauer…
All 30 teams have shown for multiple years they’re not that desperate.
Bauer was like the fifth best starter on Yokohama this year. Anthony Kay, who is not a good pitcher, had an ERA two runs lower than Bauer (3.88 for Bauer, 1.82 for Kay). Plus, Bauer hasn’t pitched in MLB in four and a half years. Only weird MRA dorks are still talking about Bauer making it back to the majors.
Good but not great starting pitcher. Has spent way to much time on the IL. Needs a priest to lift his injury prone curse,
Calling spencer turnbull
What if ‘Griffin Canning Believed To Have(n’t) Suffered Achilles Injury’?
Just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.
Megill was no loss. Leave him on the IL for the rest of the year to REALLY get healthy.