MLB

IN DENIAL: INJURY FLURRY CAUSING NO WORRIES

PORT ST. LUCIE – It is early. Keep saying that over and over. None of these injuries is serious. Repeat that non-stop. When faced with questions of age, deny, deny, deny.

The Mets are the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” having one limb after another sliced off and proclaiming them mere flesh wounds. The organization is becoming expert in downplaying players going down.

Moises Alou (hernia) and Jason Vargas (hip) yesterday became the second and third Mets flown to northeastern specialists this spring, and it was revealed Alou needs surgery and will not even return to baseball activities before camp ends. The Mets now have 16 players who have missed time in this spring due to injuries. That list includes neither Pedro Martinez and his fragile shoulder nor Juan Padilla, who has had elbow surgery in each of the past two years.

Think about that. In this camp, Pedro Martinez is the healthy Met, which is both great and horrible news wrapped in one.

What the Mets want to portray is that this is all minor, that nothing debilitating has occurred. They expect players to slowly return over the next few days and weeks (maybe months for Alou, though), and for this HMO avalanche to pass. That is one way to look at it. It’s just probably not the most realistic way. The Mets have a roster capable of winning a championship, but also one beset with age and injury concerns that imperil greatness.

One Mets official cautioned not to blur players who have continued offseason rehabs into this camp with players who were dinged here. But the three key players who arrived in rehab condition – Carlos Beltran (surgery on both knees), Luis Castillo (right knee surgery) and Endy Chavez (both hamstrings/ankle) – have games that revolve around speed and healing legs, not a great combo.

Alou and Orlando Hernandez are similar; productive when healthy. But they are always injured. Alou lasted all of 10 at-bats before his brittle body crumbled yet again, quickly removing even the low-bar hope of 120 games played. Hernandez’s right foot looks like Kathy Bates got the sledgehammer and went all “Misery” on it. He already has had to alter his distinct windup to alleviate foot pain. The Mets try to paint that as no big deal. But how can changing what you have done your whole professional life to counter agony not be a big deal?

But this is the Mets now, acting as if the bizarre is commonplace. Duaner Sanchez pitched once this spring, one inning on Friday, with no plan when he will pitch again. The Mets say he is just going through “normal” aches associated with not pitching for 1½ years after two shoulder surgeries. Except, what is normal about a week off in between relief stints?

They claimed caution in dispatching Carlos Delgado (hip) to New York for an MRI exam. However, this is what happens with older players, they break down more regularly. Yet the normally mild-mannered Omar Minaya snapped at even the mention of his roster’s age, saying, “Our team is not old. Look around baseball.”

So we did. The Mets are the only NL team with as many as six 40-man roster players who will play in their age-36 (age as of July 1) season this year. Now, age often means an accumulation of accomplished players. But if there really is tougher drug testing – for amphetamines as much as steroids – then the genie in a vial that enlivened many players is gone, replaced by the sagging realities of a yellowing birth certificate.

Alou, Delgado, Hernandez, Martinez, Damion Easley and Billy Wagner have to be viewed as red-flag players because of age and/or injury. Sanchez is definitely in that category, as well, and Beltran, Castillo, Chavez and Ruben Gotay are near that troubling level because of leg woes. What do we make of Ryan Church’s concussion or Brian Schneider’s achy hamstrings? This is a lot of players.

Sure the Mets can still prosper. Heck, the Yanks all but overcame a plague to make the playoffs last year, though they needed Alex Rodriguez’s MVP and Joba Chamberlain emerging stardom to do so.

The Mets might survive this, they might even thrive. But to behave as if nothing worrisome is going on is to add insult to injury.

joel.sherman@nypost.com