Starling Marte looks like he might need a break. Having started his 2023 season very well, hitting .303/.378/.485 with one home run and a 144 wRC+ through his first ten games, he left the Mets’ game on April 9 with a neck strain. He was, as the team put it, day-to-day.
Two days later, Marte was back in the Mets’ lineup. Since that start on April 11, however, Marte has hit just .174/.269/.196 with no home runs and a 43 wRC+. Both stretches are made up of extremely small sample sizes—37 plate appearances before the neck strain and just 52 after—but there sure looks to be a correlation between the injury and the 34-year-old outfielder’s production.