LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — If you are left-handed and can throw a strike, call the Mets.
The team’s already precarious lefty-relief situation appeared even murkier Tuesday, when Josh Edgin was scheduled to undergo an MRI exam on his cranky elbow. Test results were not immediately available.
Edgin struggled a day earlier, allowing two hits and a run in one inning against the Marlins, but alarmed team officials because of fastball velocity that had dipped into the 88-mph range. Normally, Edgin throws 92-93 with his fastball.
After highlighting lefty relief as a need heading to the Winter Meetings, general manager Sandy Alderson took a pass on veterans such as Craig Breslow and Phil Coke and later let journeyman Dana Eveland depart.
The Mets plucked Eveland from the scrap heap last season and saw him resurrect his career, going 1-1 with a 2.63 ERA in 30 appearances. But Eveland signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox in January.
Instead, the Mets opened camp with Edgin, Scott Rice, Jack Leathersich, Dario Alvarez and Rule 5 draft selection Sean Gilmartin as the lefty relief options.
“It’s way too early to say anything about anybody,” pitching coach Dan Warthen said before the Mets’ 3-2 exhibition loss to the Braves. “We are looking at lefties, so I don’t know. We have been looking at lefties every year, so I don’t have an evaluation right now.”
Of the group, the workhorse Rice has looked the best early in camp. But Alvarez was impressive against the Braves, working a perfect sixth that included retiring lefty threats Freddie Freeman and A.J. Pierzynski. Freeman had homered against Bartolo Colon in the third to account for the Braves’ runs.
There are no intentions, according to multiple club sources, of moving lefty Steven Matz into a relief role. The stud pitching prospect will remain a starter in the minor leagues and be a consideration for the rotation should a need arise during the season.
Rice, 33, was re-signed to a minor league deal in the offseason after struggling early in 2014 with the Mets, going 1-2 with a 5.93 ERA in 32 appearances before he was optioned to Triple-A Las Vegas in June. Shortly after the demotion he underwent season-ending surgery for ulnar nerve transposition in the elbow. A bone spur was also removed.
A year earlier, Rice was more effective for the Mets and led the team with 73 appearances.
“He’s looked fine,” manager Terry Collins said. “If you look at his outings he gets ground ball after ground ball, and that is what he [needs].”
Edgin’s discomfort might not be all that surprising given that he was sidelined for two weeks late last season with elbow soreness, during which time he received platelet replacement plasma.
The lefty indicated the elbow was bothering him before his most recent appearance.
“It’s something that last year it came up,” Edgin said. “I shut it down, it got better, and this year I didn’t think it was in the exact same spot as it was last year and I started throwing, felt a little discomfort and thought I could work through it.”
Edgin was sent to minor league camp last March and began the season at Triple-A, but said the elbow wasn’t a factor in that.
“Last spring was all me,” he said.
But when he returned to the Mets, he was a different pitcher, emerging as the team’s most dependable lefty option down the stretch. He went 1-0 with a 1.32 ERA in 47 appearances for the Mets.
“I know [Edgin] has had trouble with velocity every spring, and we’ll have it checked out,” Warthen said. “Hopefully everything is good. We had it checked out last year, everything was good then.”