Mets Keep Us Guessing On El Duque's Return

By Rob K
Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2007

FLUSHING, N.Y. -- The Mets aren’t giving anyone a solid answer on the return of Orlando Hernandez, but are optimistic that his return will be within the next two weeks after he threw a 60-pitch simulated game at the Mets Minor League complex on Tuesday.

The only crumb of information came from always cryptic Willie Randolph who said "The good thing about it, is that he’s coming along nicely", and GM Omar Minaya who followed up by saying "It’s a possibility that his next start could be a game for us, we haven’t determined which way we want to go on that."

Hernandez has been on the disabled list since April 25th with what the Mets have called shoulder bursitis, a condition that the organization thought would only keep him out for roughly 15 days or so, but appears now to be doubling that time frame at this point.

The Mets do have an off day scheduled for Monday so the fifth starter spot really doesn’t come into play for them until a week from this Sunday, and this Thursday’s game seems to have Jason Vargas’ name written on it after he was pulled from his latest start with New Orleans.

The only thing it would appear the Mets are waiting on now is Hernandez’s condition tomorrow after today’s simulated game. If everything appears okay, then the route the team seems to be taking is for him to throw a few more simulated games leading up to that eventual start a week from Sunday.

So, in a nutshell, stayed tuned as the aged El Duque gets monitored on a daily basis as we wait to hear more from the tight lipped, uncommitted Mets organization to let us know what’s up.