As a member -- and a fan -- of the New York Mets, you learn to be conditioned for disappointment and heartbreak. Just over the past year, this team has added a laundry list of items to their growing number of franchise distresses.
One of these has been a never-ending amount of injuries to nearly every player on the team, it seems at least. This season, David Wright went down with a back injury that was supposed to sideline him for 15 days, then turned into a stress fracture which has sidelined him for over a month already. Ike Davis collided with Wright trying to field an infield pop up back in early May and the injury looked like an innocent one. Low and behold, it has turned into a bone bruise in his ankle that's saddled him to the bench ever since. And the news continues to get worse.
An MRI taken Wednesday revealed that the bone bruise has not healed and that there may be cartilage damange in the joint as well. If Davis doesn't feel better in three weeks (which is the next time he will be reevaluated), he will undergo season-ending surgery, possibly microfracture surgery. General manager Sandy Alderson likened the injury to Beltran's bone bruise in his knee, which required him to get this type of surgery, according to MLB.com's Mets beat writer Anthony DiComo.
"It's about the same, which is not a good sign," Davis said as quoted by DiComo. "I haven't run, haven't done anything on my legs for six weeks now or five weeks. And there's not really any improvement, so that's disheartening."
Davis had been wearing a walking boot, which he has decided to scrap in order to improve the blood flow to his foot and thus hasten the healing process. Even with such discouraging news, Davis tried to be optimistic when interviewed Wednesday evening before the Mets-A's game.
"Obviously surgery is an athlete's nightmare, but I've had one surgery on my wrist and it worked out really well and it came back better than I was before," Davis said as quoted by ESPN's Adam Rubin. "If it's gonna get me on the field again obviously that's something we have to do. But, obviously, we're gonna get a second opinion and see if everything coincides with everything everyone says, and hopefully in three weeks I'm starting to run again."
Alderson is optimistic that within this three-week timeframe, Davis will progress to running, then ultimately getting on the field. Realistically, though, the situation sounds grim.
"We're hopeful that over the next three weeks he will progress to running," Alderson said. If that is not successful, then there may be some consideration about doing some surgery on the ankle. Right now I don't see him coming back anytime soon. ... Basically over the next three weeks he'll progress to hopefully running. And if he can't tolerate the running, then we go to Plan B."
Wright will be re-examined Thursday with hopes of getting cleared to ramp up the physical activities he can partake in. The Mets will certainly have their fingers crossed.