PORT ST. LUCIE — Reality set in for Zack Wheeler with a visit from the boss.
"When Jeff Wilpon came to get me, I sort of knew, 'Oh, man, it feels like you're getting taken to the principal's office.' I had a feeling it wasn't good then," Wheeler said Friday of the Mets COO summoning him to the clubhouse on Monday morning.
That's when Wheeler and team brass had a phone call with Dr. David Altchek and learned Wheeler had a full tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow and would require Tommy John surgery.
The procedure will take place next week in New York. Wheeler will follow several of his teammates in using Dr. Altchek for the surgery after consulting with Dr. James Andrews.
The procedure will be somewhat more complex than most, because Wheeler also will have a partially torn tendon repaired and a bone spur removed.
Recovery time is expected to be approximately 14 months, and Wheeler is shooting for a June 2016 return.
Wheeler said he has no issues with how his injury was handled, from the tendinitis of a year ago to the ligament tear this season. All the doctors Wheeler talked to recommended the same thing: platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy and attempting to pitch with tendon discomfort. He was told recovery time for a clean-up operation last year would have been six months.
"If I had surgery on that, I would've been out all this year anyway, so I might as well go out and pitch with it," Wheeler said. "I didn't have a problem with that. I don't think it resulted in the torn ligament. I can't complain about how the Mets handled me innings-wise. I don't have any complaints at all, so that's that."
In fact, he has looked at Tommy John surgery almost as an inevitability, given his frame and what he does for a living.
"I knew it was probably eventually gonna happen," Wheeler said. "You aren't meant to throw overhand and throw hard."
When he most recently complained of discomfort, he expected a similar diagnosis to the one he got after the season, when an MRI exam showed calcification around the tendon, and the one in January that showed a small tear in the tendon that led to a pair of PRP injections.
He didn't expect a completely torn ligament. Still, he knew something was different.
"I just couldn't recover," Wheeler said. "It took its toll and said 'I'm done.'
"When I first got here, I felt awesome. The recovery part was the only thing. I could go out there and pitch probably tomorrow, but I probably wouldn't be able to recover."
Now, he's looking forward to returning and pitching pain-free for the first time in ages.
"I've had pain in that spot in my elbow since I got drafted, since before I got drafted," Wheeler said, the No. 6 pick in 2009. "It just happened to flare up and be a little more painful last year, but not enough to where I [said,] 'Oh my gosh.'"
Wheeler points to his start last Aug. 15 against the Cubs as the last straw.
"They had a hard time hitting my curveball or slider, and I threw a good bit of those," Wheeler said. "After that, it got progressively worse."
He insists, though, he didn't consider shutting himself down, even after the Mets were eliminated from contention.
"You want to go out there and pitch every game, whether you're down 50 games or up 50 games," Wheeler said.
He'll have plenty of people to lean on for advice when it comes to Tommy John recovery. There's Jacob deGrom in the locker next to him at Tradition Field and Matt Harvey a locker away from that. Steven Matz is only feet away.
"Of course I'm nervous about it, but you've got to do it and have that mindset that when you're coming back you're going to be 100 percent and better than you were before," Wheeler said.
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