Davis believes surgery won't be needed

MIAMI -- Ike Davis is a first baseman, not a doctor, so his proclamation Monday that surgery will not be necessary for his injured left ankle was a bit premature. That decision ultimately will be left up to the team's medical staff, which will examine Davis again later this week when the Mets return to New York.

After Davis' recent improvement, however, there's reason to believe he might be correct with that prognosis. Early Monday afternoon, Davis fielded ground balls, practiced turning double plays and did a wide range of running drills. Later, he took batting practice with his teammates, which was as close to a return to normalcy as Davis could have hoped for after the past four months.

"Right now, the reason we're not going to have surgery is because I don't think it's going to be beneficial," Davis said. "Obviously, it's not ruled out. But as of right now, it looks pretty good. If it stays like this, I won't have to."

At least Davis had a good day.

As for the Mets, they did little against Javier Vazquez in a 9-3 loss to the Marlins at Sun Life Stadium. Jason Bay hit a two-run homer in the ninth, his second in two games and 11th of the season. Their other run scored in the fourth on David Wright's triple and a run-scoring groundout by Angel Pagan. Chris Capuano (10-12, 4.63) allowed six runs in four innings, his shortest outing of the season.

The Mets, while obviously thrilled by Davis' turnaround, chose to hold off on any formal announcements.

"Certainly the doctor is going to be a big part of that decision," assistant general manager John Ricco said. "Some of it's going to be Ike, some of it's going to be what we see and some of it's going to be the doctors."

There were no red flags, but Davis is wary that any flare-up of the ankle immediately would send him to the operating room. The clock is ticking when it comes to recovery time before the start of spring training.

The good news is that Davis, 24, no longer has the immediate pain that once followed these same drills. Only three weeks earlier, in talking about his situation during the Mets' visit to Arizona, Davis still was in shutdown mode and wasn't sounding too optimistic about his nonsurgical options. But he described the changes since then as "dramatic."

"It's been really progressing," Davis said. "I haven't had a lot of pain and the last two weeks I've been really pushing it. It's stayed pretty consistent and it hasn't gotten worse like the past. It's not 100 percent. It's still a little tight and there are some things in there that maybe, with more time, might heal."

Despite Davis' significant step forward this week, there are more hurdles to clear. Even if he avoids surgery in the immediate future, that doesn't necessarily mean the problem will just go away. Davis spoke about how the "dent" in one of the bones in that area along with the cartilage damage is tolerable but could be problematic down the line.

"The bottom line is that it's going to be something I'm going to have to deal with my whole life," he said.

He also hasn't played in a game since May 11, the night he collided with Wright at Coors Field.

After Davis is checked out in New York, the plan is to take another month off before slowly getting ready for next February.

One of the more painful parts about this injury was the fact that Davis was batting .302 with seven homers, 25 RBIs and a .925 OPS in 36 games before it occurred. Davis will never get that career-building momentum back. The hope now is that he can regain it in 2012.

"I'm not really worried that I won't play next year," Davis said. "If I tried to come back right now I would stink just because I haven't done anything. But next year I'll be totally refreshed."