Steven Matz dealing with sore back as Mets prepare for postseason

The Mets are setting up their rotation for the playoffs in the final week of the season, though there is still plenty of incentive for them to win.

In fact, New York still has six meaningful regular season games remaining, as NLDS home-field advantage is up for grabs. However, rumors indicate it will consist of the club’s youngest arms.

Noah Syndergaard, now expected to start Game 2, has been better at home than on the road, but his road ERA is skewed a bit by a few bad starts.

Logan Verrett gets to step in again for a start Wednesday.

“Game 3 is an important game”, Alderson told Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com.

Additionally, while Harvey disregarded his innings limit this past weekend and helped the Mets clinch their first NL East title since 2006 after throwing 97 pitches over 6 2/3 innings, he still needs to be restricted to a few capacity to preserve the health of his elbow.

“When he goes out and pitches, however many times that is, yeah, the reins will be off”, Collins said. But he won’t be ridden hard in terms of frequency of outings.

“There’s a couple other factors involved that are occurring at the moment that we need to just old off for a while on the fourth starter”, he said.

Matz said it was not a “lat” issue, nor related to his previous injury.

Matz will likely have his next start pushed back to Thursday due to right side stiffness, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York reports.

Manager Terry Collins was cryptic when talking about Matz’s status Tuesday, saying Bartolo Colon may be a postseason starter “by default”, but the team clarified that it still expects Matz to be on the NLDS roster. But we certainly have to recognize where he is over the course of the season. “Anything we decide now is tentative, anyway, based on what happens and this is a good example of how something can happen”.