The 2009 Mets were a non stop injury fest and it made it impossible for the team to be taken seriously.
It seemed that just about every game, a player was either day to day, going on the Disabled List or at least monitored closely for possible injury. Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado missed significant time during the season and David Wright ended up on the Disabled List for the last two weeks in August with a concussion.
So far in this 2010 season, we have seen Daniel Murphy injure his knee in a rundown , a hamstring injury to reliever Ryota Igarashi, and John Maine’s left elbow cramp up, if those are the only two injuries for at least the first half, the Mets are in good shape.
Carlos Beltran should be back at some point this first half, but the exact timing is yet to be seen after his rehabilitation from knee surgery. Carlos Delgado is working his way back to playing shape, but most likely he will sign mid season with a team that is in need of a back-up firstbaseman or Designater Hitter.
Training staff have taken a “Prevention and Recovery” slogan into this year, which is all well and good, but honestly, these players need to be monitored by management and training staff.
So far the 2010 Mets have played a 20-inning game against the St Louis Cardinals and three games in 24 hours series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Early in the season or not, these types of situations put a lot of wear and tear on the players and fatigue can easily lead to injury if not monitored closely. So far David Wright is the only Mets player who has not missed an inning of play, but this is by no means unusual, so he does need to be watched by Jerry Manuel and the staff.
It was good to see Jerry Manuel and the trainers come on the field to talk to John Maine last Friday when he was experiencing arm cramps in his left arm.
One thing that I found a bit strange was that they talked to him about what was going on, but David Wright was the only person who actually gave Maine some kind of brief on field examination. It was more of a point to his arm in a questioning way and Maine did look back at him to confirm the location.
Typically before a player is escorted from the field, some kind of examination takes place, which leads me to believe that the trainers knew about Maine’s arm but were hoping that it would not be an issue.
The fact that he did not throw any pitches to see if the cramp would remain was unusual, if it is a position player, a fielding play may be practiced to see the range of motion that a player has in the affected area.
To me this situation showed that the Mets players are protective of each other and that is definitely a good thing, but it in no way replaces the medical care that needs to be administered by trained professionals.
Winning is definitely what it is all about, but medical treatment and precaution always need to come first.
It does not do the fans or management any good to have injured players on the field, even if they are just a bit banged up, timely rest goes a long way during the marathon length baseball season that lasts six months.
Stay rested and healthy guys, the rest takes care of itself.
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