Survival, Sure. But Can The Mets Outlast Their Injuries?

By Jaap Stijl
Posted Tuesday, May 26, 2009

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Pointing to winning 5 games out of 10 travelling to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston over 11 days is simply an insufficient method of describing this road trip from hell.

In San Francisco they hit heights of nearly unprecedented euphoria and for once, actually looked as offensively powerful on the field as they did in Spring Training on paper.

In Los Angeles, all the stupid baseball that was overshadowed by the hitting spree was suddenly caught in the headlights.

The result was the most demoralizing and repulsive baseball not only the Mets but almost any MLB team has played all season.

I mean is anyone going to forget Ryan Church forgetting to touch third any time soon?

And then in Boston with everyone waiting for the ultimate collapse the Mets shocked and perhaps amazed by winning the first two games, including a dramatic game-winning home run by none other than Omir Santos, before finally admitting they were just happy to be alive on Sunday.

You can point, with growing concern that during this road trip, Sheffield, Alex Cora, Jose Reyes, Ryan Church, Carlos Delgado, K-Rod, Putz, Carlos Beltran all missed time due to injury, illness or other nefarious causes.

It does appear that the hole at first has been filled by The Magical Murph whilst simultaneously resolving the question of what to do with his rodeo clown performances in left field so whilst Delgado's bat will be missed, long term, his injury might prove to be an early blessing.

The Mets bleed infielders at a league-leading rate. In addition to losing Reyes indefinitely and the very valuable Cora for a longer stretch, even the Human Error Machine the Mets stuck out there in the form of Ramon Martinez had to leave the game late Sunday with back pain giving Jerry with no option but to stick Fernando Tatis at short. That's a very precarious situation.

And whilst losing Church further diminishes the Mets power at the plate, the loss of K-Rod would have been nothing short of catastrophic, not to mention cruelly ironic considering what happened last season.

Despite the twin adversaries of injuries and an occasionally blatant lack of baseball IQ, the Mets have despite their struggles, discovered they aren't a team of quitters. Boston seemed to prove that. And it may be that through this adversity the Mets will finally prove to the disbelievers this season that they have discovered an element of "Edge" after all.

But if the Met front office continues its unnecessary hesitation in making moves, players are left sitting on the bench day in and day out and the walking wounded list only expands. You have to ask yourself, given the Church fiasco last season, why Church isn't on the DL already with FMart getting the call to replace him and why day after day Reyes sits on the bench when clearly he needs to be DL'd in order to get a real player on the roster while he gets back to 100%.

You really have to question at times, especially with a weak schedule coming up, why the Mets aren't making moves and instead maintain a mysteriously stubborn refusal to admit when players are hurt and get their positions on the roster replaced. Are they simply too hopeful for their own good or are they dumb enough to think if they ignore something long enough it will simply go away?

Let's just hope this little break in the scheduling can be taken fully advantage of and the Mets don't get hamstrung by their own front office's failure to act.