PORT ST. LUCIE — Mets closer Edwin Díaz will make his first Grapefruit League appearance Monday when the Mets host the Marlins at Clover Park, manager Carlos Mendoza said.
Díaz, who missed all of 2023 with a torn patellar tendon sustained in a World Baseball Classic celebration, will enter after starter Tylor Megill and throw a maximum of 20 pitches in his latest step toward anchoring the Mets’ bullpen once again.
“The fact that he gets to pitch in a major league game for the first time after a long year of rehab and all that, I think, is important for all of us, obviously for him,” Mendoza said Sunday before the Mets hosted the Tigers, “and we’re excited to watch him pitch [Monday].”
Edwin Diaz is set to make his 2024 spring training debut on Monday, March 10. Getty ImagesDíaz has thrown in two games on the back fields this spring, including an intrasquad appearance Tuesday where he tossed 14 pitches and recorded outs against the three hitters he faced.
He said afterward that he feels “100 percent ready,” and Díaz then followed that by facing four additional hitters Friday.
“I think I will be the same guy,” Diaz said Feb. 12 after a bullpen session. “I know my body and how I have to attack the hitters and how to make pitches … and what I have to do to be successful.”
Edwin Diaz warms up during a spring training workout, at Port St. Lucie, Fla., on February 12, 2024. Newsday via Getty ImagesThe two-time All-Star recorded 32 saves and compiled a 1.31 ERA across 61 appearances in 2022, and that led to a five-year, $102 million deal in the offseason that — at the time, until Josh Hader’s pact with the Astros in January — set the record for relievers.
But he hasn’t thrown a regular-season pitch since that deal.
Díaz was injured when celebrating Puerto Rico’s win — a game where he recorded the final out and was the center of a celebration on the mound — and exited in a wheelchair.
Second baseman Jeff McNeil (left bicep soreness) took swings again Sunday, one day after he resumed hitting with dry swings and around 30 others off the tee. He was “feeling good,” Mendoza said.
The Mets have one more week before deciding whether Kodai Senga, who’ll begin the season on the injured list with a shoulder strain and received a PRP injection at the end of February, can start throwing again.
“But as of right now, everything’s trending in the right direction,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza’s father was in attendance Sunday at Clover Park, and the pair posed for a pregame photo on the field.
Wilmer Flores, the brother of former Mets infielder Wilmer Flores, pitched two innings of scoreless relief for Detroit. All three Flores brothers and their father share the same first name.






