Earlier this week, we detailed how the Mets have done a nice job reinserting themselves into the wild card picture despite a plethora of injuries. Unfortunately, the injury hits just keep coming. On Friday, we learned that Jacob deGrom would miss his next start due to forearm soreness. On Saturday, yet another young Mets starer was ruled out -- this time for the season.

Zack Wheeler, who underwent Tommy John surgery back in March 2015, was shut down two weeks ago with a strained flexor muscle. Now, Wheeler has been deemed out of the year after making just one rehab appearance -- meaning, in other words, he'll miss his second consecutive big-league season:

Adam Rubin notes that Wheeler isn't expected to pick up a baseball again until it's time to get into shape for spring training. The Mets are ostensibly hoping that down time will help with the recovery process. With just a few weeks remaining in the regular season, Wheeler's chances of making any impact at the big-league level were slim to none anyway, so this won't impact them in the short term.

Still, the Mets have had enough injury-related issues here lately that it's time to start asking: how much of this is bad luck, and how much of it is symptomatic of a larger problem?