Injuries piling up for Pedro, again

Oft-injured Pedro Martinez is up to his old tricks again, forcing the New York Mets to make changes to their upcoming rotation. The 36-year old pitcher received a cortisone injection in his right hip to help with the pain in his groin. The good news is his shoulder pain wasn’t anything to worry about. The soreness was from altering his pitching motion due to the groin. So what does this mean for the team and pitcher?

For you Mets fans (only god knows why you’d be) this shouldn’t hurt to much. Pedro is without a doubt going to miss his start on Sunday against the Cincinnati Red, and be replaced by Mike Pelfrey. So no big loss there. The team will benefit thou from an off day on Monday and not need a fifth starter till July 26th. So no worries there.

Manager Jerry Manuel is still holding out hope thou that Pedro can pitch Tuesday. He’ll attempt a bullpen session this weekend, and if everything goes Ok then he’ll pitch. If not, the rotation will lineup with Johan Santana, John Maine and Oliver Perez for the big series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

They aren’t considering the disabled list at the moment, instead they’ll wait to see how Pedro responds to the cortisone shot. If I was a Mets fan thou, I’d begin to worry again about his health. I doubt any of you thought he’d go the rest of the season completely injury free. If you did? Well sorry you’re just an idiot. He’s now pitched a total of 14 games over the past two seasons, so durability is a huge issue now. Manuel is not concerned thou with his durability, “The only time I’ve been concerned is when he mentioned his shoulder in that one game,” Manuel said. “Other than that I have not been concerned.” My suggestion throw him on the DL, let him rest up for a couple more weeks then help out the team in mid-August through the stretch run.

On a side note, Orlando Hernandez was being considered to take Pedro’s spot in the rotation. That plan has been scrapped thou after El Duque had to leave his start at Double-A Binghamton after one inning after feeling discomfort in his surgically repaired right foot.

The Mets are now in an all out dogfight with the Phillies for NL East supremacy. No surprise there it was expected before the season started. Shea will be rocking and with it being the last year of the stadium, you need to be there if you’re a fan.

Photo courtesy of Dead Spin.

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Tags: MLB, New York Mets