Mets’ Jeff McNeil cleared for baseball activities as potential injury return takes next step

PHILADELPHIA — Jeff McNeil’s ramp-up for a potential return in the postseason is about to begin.

The Mets utilityman is scheduled to rejoin the team Sunday, following the birth of a child, and has been cleared to resume baseball activities, according to Carlos Mendoza. The manager added that McNeil has already been hitting off a tee.

McNeil spent the final three weeks of the regular season on the injured list with a right wrist fracture after he was hit by a pitch.

Mendoza said it’s still unclear if McNeil would be a possibility for a return in the NLCS if the Mets were to advance.

“We’re going to put our eyes on him and follow that progression,” Mendoza said before the Mets rallied to beat the Phillies, 6-2, in Game 1 of the NLDS at Citizens Bank Park.

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With McNeil sidelined, Jose Iglesias has been the team’s everyday second baseman. Iglesias, who got the start at second before moving to third base in the eighth inning Saturday, was 1-for-4.

The Mets’ eighth-inning rally Saturday made them just the third team in MLB history to win back-to-back playoff games when trailing in the eighth inning or later, joining the 1999 Mets squad and the 1980 Phillies.

The Mets had a day off Friday (players were excused from working out) that might have been as welcomed as any all season.

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It followed a stretch in which the Mets traveled from Milwaukee to Atlanta back to Milwaukee with multiple tight turnarounds in playing five games over four days.

“We needed it,” Mendoza said of the day off. “Mentally, physically, we got in late [Thursday] and the high intensity games that we’re playing. It was good for the guys that they just got to kind of hit the reset button.”

Saturday marked the first time since 2006 that the Mets and Yankees played a postseason game on the same day.

“I don’t know much about football,” Luis Severino said. “But as far as baseball, New York is doing a great job.”

Mendoza, like Severino, has been to the postseason with the Mets and Yankees.

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The Mets manager was a coach on Aaron Boone’s staff for six seasons.

“It’s a great day,” Mendoza said. “You have got both teams playing in October in a city like New York, it should mean a lot.”

Huascar Brazoban and Max Kranick, who were both active players in the wild-card series, were excluded from the NLDS roster.

Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill were added. The Mets taxi squad includes Brazoban, Kranick, Brett Baty, Pablo Reyes, Hayden Senger and McNeil.

Senga was the first pitcher to start a postseason game after appearing one or fewer times during the season since Virgil Trucks for the Tigers in the 1945 World Series, after he returned from World War II, according to MLB Network statistician Sarah Langs and the Elias Sports Bureau.

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