Look up the Mets in any preseason magazine. Look at their roster, look at their projected lineup and look at where they’re predicted to finish.
It’s a guarantee you won’t see Darren Bragg playing right field and leading off, as he was last night. You won’t see Desi Relaford playing second base, or Lenny Harris playing third, as they were Tuesday night.
Injuries are a fact of life, and they’ve been all too common in Flushing this season.
They cannot be used as the excuse for failure, and yet Steve Phillips, Bobby Valentine and everyone on down acknowledges how insidious they can be. In a candid moment in the Mets’ dugout yesterday, Valentine admitted it’s something he simply can’t get a handle on.
“Injuries are always the toughest thing to deal with because I don’t know how to deal with them,” said Valentine. “[Injured players] say that they’re fine and they’re less than fine.
“You give them extra time and they lose their rhythm. It’s tough to deal with.”
You don’t need to call Miss Cleo to figure out the Mets’ future if they don’t get healthy quick.
Maybe Relaford, who was the Phillies’ everyday shortstop in 1998, was injured in ’99 and traded to San Diego last year, has the best perspective. He’s watched the starters go down, and seen what it’s done to the team. Relaford was back on the bench last night because Edgardo Alfonzo had sufficiently recovered from a back injury.
“When you start the season and you make your predictions, you figure in your goals and possibilities, the guys that are in are your starting guys,” Relaford said. “Those are the guys who are the mainstays of the team, the ones you figure into that equation.
“When those guys aren’t in there, yeah, it messes up that equation.”
You can talk all you want about Todd Zeile’s lone home run, Glendon Rusch’s road ERA or the Kevin Appier and Steve Trachsel double dip of disappointment. Those factors have been responsible for the team sitting in the NL East basement at 15-23 and 7½ games behind the upstart Phillies. So have injuries.
Phillips was asked if he felt the team was getting over the hump on the injury front, and the Mets GM said he couldn’t say that until guys like Al Leiter (left elbow) and Rick White (strained right rotator cuff) are activated from the disabled list.
He certainly can’t say it when the Mets’ World Series outfield of Benny Agbayani (abdominal strain), Jay Payton (hamstring) and Timo Perez (hand) was missing from last night’s outfield.
“When they’re healthy I think they’re real good,” Valentine said. “We haven’t seen three guys go out there 100 percent the whole entire time.”
In addition, Valentine saw Hamilton limping around the outfield Tuesday night, and isn’t sure he’s 100 percent. The left fielder was just activated after a nagging toe injury. You want more? Tsuyoshi Shinjo has a strained right quad and took an MRI yesterday. Results were negative.
Bragg, who was recalled from Triple A Norfolk yesterday and immediately put in the lineup, is of the opinion that you can’t gripe about injuries.
“That’s part of the game, the hard-nosed Bragg said. “Guys go down. The teams that stay healthy are the ones that end up winning. I know maybe we’re struggling, but you’ve got to overcome it.
“Guys have to step up. I’m one of the guys who needs to.”
Not only is time running out to get healthy, but time is ticking on the season. Relaford agrees with Bragg that it’s way past time to get going and playing with a sense of urgency.
“Not so much panicking, but knowing that the season started on a bad start and we have to turn it around,” Relaford said. “There’s no reason to wait, keep continuing to say, ‘Well, we’re starting slow. We’re not doing so bad.’ No excuses. We’re not playing the type of ball we need to be playing.”
Just like you wouldn’t expect your son or daughter to be taught math by a substitute teacher, it’s tough to expect a good bench to bring the Mets back to the World Series.
“Every team I’ve been on, we’ve had slow starts,” Relaford said. “Unfortunately, I’ve been on teams with slow starts, slow middles and slow finishes. Slow all over.”