sportsjabber.net

Nice catch, Fernando.

The New York Mets have finally gotten some good news. The second opinion (from Dr. Richard Steadman) on Carlos Beltran’s hurt knee was the same as the Mets’ medical staff: no surgery required.

The Gold Glove center fielder will be re-evaluated later on this week and will most likely still be resting the bone bruise through the All-Star break. Beltran had been playing through the pain most of the season before landing on the 15-day disabled list last week, batting .336 with eight bombs, 20 doubles, 40 RBIs and 11 stolen bases. Not bad for wincing.

New York has been destroyed by injuries so far this season. Aside from Beltran, they’re missing J.J. Putz’s right elbow, Jose Reyes’ calf and hamstring, Carlos Delgado’s hip, Oliver Perez’s right knee, and John Maine’s right shoulder. Ouch.

And it shows. The Mets lost 6-3 to the Milwaukee Brewers Tuesday night for their fifth straight loss, dropping to 37-39, 1.5 games behind the Florida Marlins in the NL East, but just 3 games behind the division-leading Philadelphia Phillies.

“We just want to survive and then hope we’ve got reinforcements. We have a lot of things now that we think we can look forward to,” said manager Jerry Manuel. “The real key is that we survive and that they have no setbacks, then we will be getting somewhere.”

Whatever that means.

Sooze is an SJ Contributing Author.

Read more of her work at Babes Love Baseball