Mets righty Tylor Megill suffered a setback in his rehab from elbow inflammation. Manager Carlos Mendoza tells reporters (including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com) that Megill felt elbow tightness when he tried to throw his breaking stuff on a rehab start with Triple-A Syracuse yesterday. The Mets sent him back to New York for imaging to determine whether there’s any structural damage.

Megill has been out since the middle of June. There’s a decent chance the setback will prevent him from contributing to the Mets’ hopeful playoff push. “We’re running out of time, especially now with him complaining about the same thing that he went down with earlier in the year,” Mendoza admitted. “I don’t want to speculate here, but the fact that he’s getting another MRI and where we’re at, it feels like we’re running out of time.”

The 30-year-old Megill opened the season in New York’s rotation. He started 14 times and managed a solid 3.95 earned run average across 68 1/3 frames. Megill struck out more than 29% of opponents, and while he didn’t often work deep into games, he was typically good for five solid innings in his starts. Megill probably wouldn’t have secured a spot in the Mets’ playoff rotation coming off an elbow injury that cost him most of the second half. He could have been a valuable multi-inning arm out of the bullpen, though.

That no longer seems likely. The Mets haven’t firmly closed the door on a return, but any kind of structural issue would certainly do so. Even if the imaging only reveals inflammation, it’s tough to see him returning before the end of the regular season on September 28. Playing deep into the postseason would give him a little more runway from a recovery perspective but also make it riskier for the Mets to shake up their October pitching staff.

Megill is playing on a $1.975MM salary in his first trip through arbitration. He crossed the four-year service threshold and will earn a slight raise for next season. The Mets control him through 2027.