Leaving game was a pain to Mets starter Dickey

LOS ANGELES - As dangerous as Clayton Kershaw was to the Mets' lineup during yesterday's 1-0 loss to Los Angeles, he was even more harmful to R.A. Dickey, who was forced to leave the game with a leg injury after stepping into a hole in the mound left by the Dodgers' starter.

Dickey had thrown five scoreless innings, striking out six, before he tumbled off the mound while delivering an 0-and-1 pitch to Russell Martin leading off the sixth. As Dickey tried to stretch his left leg on the mound, he convinced manager Jerry Manuel to let him remain in the game.

But after Dickey fielded a pair of comebackers, going after the second one (hit by Kershaw) awkwardly, Manuel trotted back out. There was a brief discussion, and Dickey grew agitated as Manuel held up his left arm to signal for Raul Valdes. When Dickey got to the dugout, he fired his glove at the bench.

"It was aggravating," he said. "It's frustrating because a part of me feels like you're letting somebody down, like you're letting your team down, and that never sits well, in my stomach at least."

Despite his anger, however, Dickey said he had no issue with Manuel. "Jerry is the captain of the ship," he said. "I respect his decision. And at the end of the day, I know he has my best interests at heart so I can go to sleep at night."

Dickey said he felt a strain in his left backside, possibly a hip flexor injury, and the Mets will have him examined Monday at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Dickey plans to make his next start, and that's part of the reason why Manuel wanted to lift him when he did.

"I'm worried about long term," Manuel said. "As well as he's pitching, I didn't think we could afford to lose that piece."

Barajas might go on DL

Rod Barajas will be examined Monday with the possibility of landing on the disabled list with a strained right oblique. Barajas is the third Met, after Angel Pagan and Jose Reyes, to suffer an oblique strain. "Any time we have one or two guys with the same thing, our trainers try to go back and see if there's anything they're doing that's causing it," Manuel said. "They'll be doing the research on that."