At this point, whatever remaining Mets players are healthy should be encased in bubble wrap.A day after second baseman Luis Castillo sprained his left ankle on the dugout steps -- the Mets said he is day-to-day, and when they say that, they usually end up being wrong -- lefty Jonathon Niese left Wednesday's start in the second inning with a strained right hamstring.
"From what I understand right now we suspect it to be a tear," manager Jerry Manuel said.
As it turns out, it was a complete tear of the right hamstring from the bone, and the team announced Niese would have surgery and miss the rest of the season Wednesday night.
And in the sixth inning, left fielder Gary Sheffield came out with what the team called "tightness" in his right hamstring from running out a hit. Sheffield had just returned Sunday from a stint on the disabled list with cramping in the same hamstring.
"It's going to turn around and it's only going to be positives that's coming," Sheffield said. "When you go through something like this, it's always something good at the end that's going to happen."
Sheffield said he is day-to-day, but Niese seems bound for the disabled list.
Niese was injured covering first base as the Mets tried to turn a 3-6-1 double play in the top of the second inning at Citi Field. But St. Louis' Joe Thurston was safe at first as Niese's left foot came off first base. He may have rolled his right foot trying to stretch for the throw.
According to third baseman David Wright, Niese said he felt some "burning" in the leg but wanted to give it a moment to calm down and then continue pitching. Manuel insisted Niese threw a practice pitch.
But as soon as Niese followed through and put all his weight on his right leg, he collapsed on the front of the mound and had to be helped off the field.
Later in the game, Manuel stretched out reliever Bobby Parnell for three innings and 30 pitches and said afterward it's "a consideration" that Parnell would move into the rotation.
"It's been a difficult time for us," Manuel said, "but we still have to continue to play baseball."
Of the Mets' 25-man Opening-Day roster, 10 have spent time on the disabled list. The Mets currently have nine players on the DL, including Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, John Maine, J.J. Putz and Jose Reyes. They have used 47 players this year, second in the majors to the Padres' 49.
The Mets also announced that an MRI on Reyes' injured right knee revealed "significant" inflammation and scar tissue behind it. The All-Star shortstop will remain in New York for physical therapy, and at this stage, it's a huge question mark whether he will return at all in 2009.
"We should be pretty used to it by now," Wright said. "We've dealt with enough injuries."
Wright is the lone star position player on the team to avoid the injury bug, yet he had a brush with disaster Wednesday when St. Louis reliever Brad Thompson threw a pitch at his head, apparently in retaliation for Albert Pujols' being hit on the right arm the previous inning. Wright ducked out of the way, and home-plate umpire Bill Miller then warned both teams.
"I bet if he had to hit he wouldn't have thrown it up there," Wright said calmly. "You understand, it's part of the game. But you do it the right way. You hit a guy in the butt, hit a guy in the back. You don't start going up there near the head. ... The umpire was pretty firm and I think they did the right thing."
The Cardinals, of course, denied any intent on Thompson's part.
"I think they were just getting the ball in," manager Tony La Russa told reporters. "That's what Brad was trying to do, get a ball in. You can't throw a ball that high. That looks terrible."
