Mets third baseman David Wright has taken the next step in his potentially extreme longshot goal to return, hitting Friday in the batting cage while doing other baseball activity on the field.
Wright had ramped up his level of baseball activity on June 10.
Wright, who missed the 2017 season and has been limited to 75 games since 2015 due to various back, neck and shoulder injuries, had been swinging off a tee, playing catch, and fielding grounders.
Wright, 35, played catch for the first time since 2017 in late-May, but said then he was taking things one step at a time.
"When it's all said and done I want me to be able to say I did everything I could," Wright said in March. "If it works, that's obviously the goal. And if it doesn't work, then I'll rest easy knowing that I gave it my best shot."
In 2015, he was diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis and was limited to 38 games. He played in 37 games in 2016 but underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc in his neck.
Wright, who is signed through the 2020 season, has a career .296/.376/.491 batting line with 242 home runs and 970 RBIs. A seven-time All-Star, Wright last appeared in 100 games in 2014, when he hit .269 with eight home runs and 63 RBIs in 134 games.