Don’t look for Carlos Beltran and Daniel Murphy to make their season debuts any too soon.
Both players continue to recover slowly from injuries in Florida, exacerbating the Mets’ slow start.
GM Omar Minaya said yesterday that Beltran has not been cleared to resume baseball-related activities and that he is scheduled “this week” to visit the doctors in Colorado who performed his offseason knee surgery.
“We’ll know more after that,” said Minaya, who called it a “standard checkup” for Beltran.
Murphy, whom the Mets said would be out 2-6 weeks when he sprained a ligament in his right knee during a rundown on March 30, is still on the mend, as well.
“We’re still within that six-week window,” Minaya said. “He just started limited baseball activity, just started running.”
When pressed for what “limited baseball-related activity” meant, Minaya said “lightly running, some soft-toss batting practice.”
The GM also would not address whether Ike Davis’ promotion would serve as an audition before Murphy’s eventual return.
“We’ll see what happens,” Minaya said. “I don’t want get to get into how long [Davis] is gonna be here.”
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Jerry Manuel opted to lift Jeff Francoeur in a double switch when he brought Jenrry Mejia in to pitch.
“I wanted him to throw two innings,” Manuel said of Mejia. “And if we can give a guy an inning or so off and still not feel we’re jeopardizing anything defensively, we’ll do it.”
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Jason Bay went 2-for-3 last night, was looking to recover from his 0-for-7 showing in Saturday’s 20-inning win in St. Louis.
“I felt a lot better in my one at-bat [on Sunday] than I did on Saturday,” said Bay. “I’m not immune to slumps, but things like what I’m going through always look worse at the beginning of the year.”
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The Mets played their first home game since the rest of baseball honored Jackie Robinson, so last night both teams wore 42 jerseys.
Mike Pelfrey leads the Mets in wins (two) and saves (one).