NEW YORK (AP) — Already running low on pitching, the New York Mets added starter Paul Blackburn and reliever Dedniel Núñez to a crowded injured list Thursday in their latest flurry of roster moves.
Núñez has a right elbow sprain and could require Tommy John surgery for the second time in his career. Blackburn was given medication for a right shoulder impingement and won't throw for three to five days.
“Hopefully that calms the discomfort there a little bit and we’ll get him going, so that’s relatively good news,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. "As far as the rotation goes — one day at a time. Got to get through today and see where we’re at for tomorrow and then for the weekend.”
Blackburn (0-3, 7.71 ERA) had been lined up to pitch in the Subway Series this weekend against the New York Yankees at Citi Field. Now, the Mets are undecided for Friday and Sunday — with Frankie Montas scheduled Saturday to make his third start this season since returning from a lat strain.
“I think every option is on the table and we’re discussing all of them," Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns said. “We’re going to evaluate everything. We’ll get through it. I do think we have options to get through this, and this is more of a short-term need than a longer-term need."
Five of New York's top eight starting pitchers are on the injured list, though left-hander Sean Manaea and right-hander Kodai Senga appear to be on the mend.
Stearns said he'd prefer not to call up one of the team's highest-rated prospects, such as Brandon Sproat or Nolan McLean, for a spot start.
“I also understand this is a unique circumstance and I can’t take anything off the table right now,” Stearns said. "But my preference would be to figure out a way to do it without doing that.”
Manaea (oblique, elbow) and Senga (right hamstring strain) are both nearing a return, though neither is quite ready to rejoin the tattered rotation. Mendoza said it's possible one or both could come off the injured list during the last weekend before the All-Star break, July 12-13 in Kansas City.
They are among 12 Mets pitchers on the IL, including fellow starters Tylor Megill (elbow sprain) and Griffin Canning, who is out for the season after rupturing his left Achilles tendon last week.
With the pitching staff ravaged recently following a terrific start, New York had lost 14 of 18 heading into Thursday night's game against Milwaukee.
"We feel good about where Senga is in his process. We feel good about where Sean is, getting back. And so, clearly this weekend we’ve got some decisions to make. Then we have an off day and we get into next week and it becomes a little cleaner,” Stearns said.
Senga threw a bullpen Wednesday and was running and going through fielding practice Thursday. The goal is for him to make a rehab start for Double-A Binghamton on Saturday or Sunday, according to Mendoza.
Manaea has been sidelined since spring training with a right oblique strain, and his most recent rehab outing was pushed back because of elbow discomfort attributed to a bone chip. But he received a cortisone shot and threw 60 pitches over three innings Wednesday evening for Binghamton against Hartford.
Assuming he feels good, Manaea is expected to make one more minor league start next Tuesday and then perhaps pitch for the Mets on July 13 at Kansas City in the final game before the All-Star break.
“It is a possibility," Mendoza said. “Ideally, yes. But again, we’re going to take it one day at a time, one outing at a time.”
New York recalled right-handers Austin Warren and Justin Hagenman from Triple-A Syracuse, and selected the contract of right-hander Rico Garcia. All three were in the bullpen for Thursday night's series finale versus the Brewers.
Right-hander Blade Tidwell was optioned to Syracuse after throwing 4 1/3 innings in relief Wednesday night to earn his first major league victory in the second game of a split doubleheader.
Blackburn was placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to Monday.
With the bullpen taxed so heavily lately, the Mets put him back on the mound following an 89-minute rain delay Saturday in Pittsburgh — and Mendoza acknowledged he thinks that led to the pitcher's injury.
When the game resumed, Blackburn gave up five consecutive singles to start the bottom of the second inning before he was removed.
“Obviously, we knew we were asking a lot. But the whole time we were asking feedback from him. He kept throwing, and we knew and he knew that we were only going to ask him for another 35 pitches, right?” Mendoza said.
"But yeah, I think it has something to do with it. You hate to see it, but it’s where we were at at the time. And again, the back and forth with him, with the trainers, and we just felt like even though it was an hour and a half — you know, it wasn’t an easy decision. And here we are now.”
Núñez (0-0, 4.66 ERA) also landed on the 15-day IL as the Mets wait for multiple doctors to review imaging before a plan for the right-hander is determined.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
New York Mets' Dedniel Núñez pitches during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves Thursday, June 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Mets pitcher Paul Blackburn delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least eight people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel's 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a structure there.
As of Friday, no major changes had been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s social media posts, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
In a letter late Friday to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council, Iran's envoy asked the world body to condemn the rhetoric and reaffirm the country's "inherent right to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security, and to protect its people against any foreign interference.”
“The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation," said Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”
Trump's online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran's 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”
But such White House support still carries a risk.
“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei recently cited a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances regarding U.S. intervention, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and the strikes in June.
Protests continued Friday in various cities in the country, even as life largely continued unaffected in the capital, Tehran. Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. It said the death toll in the demonstrations rose to eight with the death of a demonstrator in Marvdasht in Iran's Fars province.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Zahedan in Iran's restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place Friday, sparking marches.
Videos purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran's Lorestan province.
Footage also showed Khodayari's father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government's claims that he served.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.
The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
A woman shows a portrait of the late commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, on her smartphone during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as one of them holds up a poster of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This combo shows President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. and Iranian Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Bilal Hussein)
