Montas and Manaea to make rehab starts this weekend as they near return to Mets

NEW YORK (AP) - Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea will make minor league rehab appearances this weekend and both could join the New York Mets’ rotation in the coming weeks.

Montas will make a fifth rehab start Friday and Manaea will take the mound two days later for his third, manager Carlos Mendoza said Wednesday.

Mendoza said he isn't worried about how to sort out seven pitchers for five rotation slots when Montas and Manaea both get back.

"Usually it plays itself out," Mendoza said. "We still are at least two weeks away from making those decisions and I'm hoping that by the time we get there it is going to be a difficult decision. That means everyone's healthy. That means everybody continues to throw the ball well and we have some good problems."

Montas strained a lat muscle early in spring training and made his first minor league appearance on May 24. The 32-year-old right-hander has a 9.00 ERA in two games each for Class-A Brooklyn and Triple-A Syracuse, striking out nine and walking eight in 12 innings. After his next outing for Syracuse, he could make his Mets debut.

"Let's get through this one on Friday and then we'll see where we’re at," Mendoza said. "This is kind of like spring training for him and hitters now are like midseason form. And it’s hard to put too much into it where, you're not game-planning, you're just going out there, which I think we've got to do a better job of that, in preparing him and giving him a little bit of an idea."

Manaea arrived at spring training with a strained right oblique and the 33-year-old left-hander made his first rehab appearance on June 6. He has a 6.23 ERA in two outings and 4 1/3 innings with Brooklyn, and Mendoza didn’t specify where Manaea will make his next appearance.

New York entered Wednesday with the best record in the National League at 43-24, leading the NL East by 4 1/2 games. Clay Holmes, David Peterson, Kodai Senga, Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning have combined to make 63 of 67 starts for a rotation that began the day with a big league-best 2.91 ERA.