ATLANTA – Saying he felt like he had been in a car accident, Mike Piazza took last night off because of a stiff neck and Todd Pratt caught for him for the second game in a row.
“It’s like whiplash,” Piazza said.
Piazza hurt his neck falling backward after failing to catch a pop up against the Marlins Wednesday night. Earlier in the game, he suffered a mild concussion when Bruce Aven’s bat clipped him in the head on a back swing, and that made him woozy with a loss of balance on the pop up.
He missed Thursday’s 3-2 win over the Marlins because of the concussion and Pratt went 1-for-3. Then, Thursday night, Piazza felt some stiffness in his neck and came to the park early to get some treatment.
Piazza felt he could have started and played last night, but when Bobby Valentine saw him on the trainer’s table and how stiff he was, he told him to take another day off.
“I felt I could have played,” Piazza said. “But Bobby said to give it one more day. I should be able to go [tonight].”
Piazza said he first started to feel stiffness Thursday night when he had trouble turning his head to the side to look at something in a restaurant. He said the pain reaches down the neck and prevents proper movement.” *
GM Steve Phillips vehemently denied a published report that said the Mets had discussed making Tom Seaver the manager had Valentine resigned following the firing of three of his coaches.
“There’s no truth whatsoever to that,” he said.
According to one team source, Phillips had a contingency plan to use Cookie Rojas or Mookie Wilson to manage the first couple of games had Valentine stepped down, but Phillips would not address that notion yesterday. Bobby Jones responded well to his session on the mound Thursday and so will advance his rehabilitation process another step that will hopefully have him back in action just after the All-Star Break. Jones, who has a strained right shoulder, will throw off the mound again tomorrow. If that goes well, he will throw batting practice in Miami Wednesday. Then a simulated game at home next weekend and finally a minor-league rehabilitation assignment. *
Last night’s game started 45 minutes late because the lights weren’t working properly at Turner Field. According to Braves president Stan Kasten, an electrical problem in a transformer wiped out a bank of lights down the right-field line. But the problem was fixed and the game started at 8:25.