At the end of the day, David Wright was at shortstop for the first time in his major league career, Jose Reyes was at the Hospital for Special Surgery, getting an MRI exam on his aching left hamstring and Daniel Murphy had been carried off the field in agony with a season-ending left knee injury.
The Curse of Citi Field was in full swing yesterday in the Mets’ 6-5 loss to the Braves.
Reyes lost some free-agent leverage with this latest hamstring injury, but this also shows the Mets that if they do re-sign the shortstop, they must come up with a better training plan for him. Reyes may have to alter his style a bit.
Reyes and the Mets have to be honest with each other, this is not working. There has to be a better approach to how you train this thoroughbred of a player.
Baseball is a game of left turns and Reyes continues to have problems with his left hamstring. That is the same injury that caused Reyes to miss a good chunk of baseball earlier this season, and leg injuries have been his downfall throughout his career. Hamstrings have been his hang-up.
The bottom line is Reyes has to find a way to stay on the field and keep his legs under him. He does no one any good on the bench. Reyes was limited to 36 games in 2009. Leg injuries kept him to 53 games in 2004. He has changed his running style, but clearly there are problems.
Reyes has to do something different. Rickey Henderson once told me he was saddled by hamstring problems until his mother, who was a nurse, happened to come up with a stretching routine that worked best for him. Something has to change.
When I asked manager Terry Collins about a preventative plan for the future with Reyes, he admitted it is a difficult situation.
“I don’t know what to say except that this was not a fatigue factor,” Collins said. “He’s only been back about two weeks. We’ve had two days off this week. He takes great care of himself. He’s not a guy that you ever worry about not getting his rest, not doing what he needs to do. He loves to play.
“To be honest, he’s one of those guys with lean body fat,” Collins added. “There’s nothing else to it. He’s wound pretty tight and those kind of guys are like that, that have that real low body fat.”
Sounds like Reyes should mix in a few more cheeseburgers.
Reyes takes extra precautions before every game to loosen up.
“You watch him before a game,” Collins said. “Show me anybody else in the league that goes out and warms up his legs for 25 minutes before the game starts and does it thoroughly. I don’t have an answer for you.”
No one has the answer to that $100 million question.
Without his legs, Reyes is not the same lethal weapon. As Wright noted, Reyes’ legs are his game. Reyes came up gimpy running to first on a grounder to third in the first inning. Then as he tried to move to his left to field Jose Constanza’s grounder in the second inning, he felt more pain. Willie Harris pinch-hit for Reyes in the bottom of the second.
Once again the Mets are playing without Reyes. Usually a second hamstring injury causes a team to be more cautious. Reyes missed 12 games last time with this injury. No Mets official would set a timetable this time and Reyes was not available for comment.
Really, what can he say? Words are useless at this point. It’s all about staying on the field. The Mets offense will be hamstrung again with this injury and the loss of Murphy. Reyes is batting .336. Murphy is at .320. The rest of the Mets are hitting a combined .250.
Once again this will show the Mets how much they miss Reyes. Yes, Reyes’ free-agent price-tag gets a little cheaper with each injury.
The cost of keeping him healthy and on the field, though, is priceless.