While the .500 mark has been the bar set by Jerry Manuel for when to press the panic button, when the Mets dipped below it Monday night that hardly seemed like the cause for concern.
Sure, the Mets seem to be in a freefall and that three-game deficit in the National League East feels like it could be six or seven very quickly. As we detail in today's Record, another loss just feels like another day off the calendar.
But the standings and the record are secondary today to what could be much more serious trouble. Carlos Beltran went to Vail Monday for a second opinion and it certainly is a cause for concern. While the Mets took a calm stance, insisting that the precautionary second opinion is just Beltran's decision to try to reassure himself, it looks much worse.
Here's the layman take on it - and that's all I can give. He's got a deep bone bruise in his knee. He played with that and it got worse. When I covered the NBA - much more pounding on the knees there for sure - the players who had this injury usually wound up with microfracture surgery, which usually led to a severe drop in their performance if they returned at all.
Oh, and the doctor that Beltran is going to see is Dr. Richard Steadman, the inventor of the microfracture procedure - and the doctor who operated on Allan Houston (never the same until he retired), Jason Kidd (severe dropoff) and Kenyon Martin (from max contract to role player).
So as Bob Klapisch writes today the mood has turned sour at every level.
The Mets could certainly use some good news today. But winning a game and getting back to .500 won't do it. They need either good news on an injured player - Beltran would fit that bill, but it's hard to imagine - or a deal to change the tone. When Argenis Reyes is leading off I think it's safe to say we've gone as far as we can go with the lineup possibilities of the current squad.
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