Ike timetable: Three weeks or season over

Ominous injury news has been unrelenting for the Mets this season, and they received another dose Thursday. Ike Davis went to North Carolina, where he received a cortisone shot for the left ankle injury that has sidelined him since May 10. If it doesn't work within three weeks, Davis said he will have season-ending arthroscopic surgery.

Just when it appeared the power-hitting first baseman was progressing toward a return, he experienced what he described as "random pain" after he began jogging over the weekend. A week ago Thursday and Friday, Davis tried jogging in a harness that took pressure off his injured foot. It felt good, so he tried warming up with the harness and then running normal on an indoor turf field on Saturday.

But it acted up on Sunday when he tried running without warming up first in the harness. "It really hurt just starting on the turf," Davis said Thursday at Citi Field, where he arrived after the stopover in North Carolina. "It was real sharp."

he following couple of days, Davis was able to lift weights and even jog a bit without pain. But the uncertainty of what to expect bothers him. "I'm so young that I don't want to have random days where my ankle just doesn't work," Davis said. "We'll figure that out as it goes."

He said the problem is related to an indentation in his ankle bone and how it interacts with the surrounding cartilage. Since cartilage can't be seen on an MRI exam, the only way to be certain of the source of the issue is to perform arthroscopic surgery, but Davis would like to avoid that if possible.

"Once I have a scope, it's eight weeks no matter what," he said of the recovery time. "So, we'll give it three more weeks, and then if we have [the scope] done, it's season-ending . . . The cortisone shot is a last-ditch effort to see if we can push forward without having surgery."

Davis was hitting .302 with seven home runs and 25 RBIs through 36 games when he suffered the injury in a collision with David Wright on May 10 in Colorado. He hasn't played since.

"The biggest thing is you miss your job," Davis said. "I trained all offseason. I trained hard. I did spring training. It's a lot of effort to put into something and then get it cut short. You miss hanging out with your teammates and being part of something."

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said team doctors agreed with Davis' doctor that Cortisone might help. "We want to get him running for a period of time," Alderson said. "Hopefully, he'll be able to get back to baseball activity. But right now, it's open-ended."