Reyes, Murphy hurt in Mets' 6-5 loss

The white flag raised Sunday at Citi Field should have a red cross emblazoned on it. On a weekend that began with medical setbacks to Johan Santana and Ike Davis, the Mets added Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy to the list during a 6-5 loss to the Braves that all but squashed their slim wild-card hopes.

Say this much about the Mets: they didn’t go down without a fight. Not only was Reyes pulled because of more problems with his left hamstring, Murphy – a seventh-inning sub at second base – was helped off the field after Jose Constanza crashed into his left knee.

Both players had MRIs after the game, and the result was devastating for Murphy, who had suffered an MCL sprain of his left knee that will end his season, the team confirmed on Monday. The injury will not require surgery, but the recovery time is six to eight weeks. Last year, Murphy never made it beyond a rehab stint at Triple-A Buffalo because of MCL tear of his right knee, the result of a dirty takeout slide on a double play.

“You feel for Murph because you know how much he cares and how much he wants to be here and what playing this game means to him,” David Wright said. “You know how hard he’s worked to get to this.”

Reyes has a hamstring strain and his status will "be determined later [Monday]," the Mets said in a press release. Sandy Alderson said late Sunday that Ruben Tejada was headed to New York for Monday’s game but the Mets had yet to decide on a second roster move.

“It literally felt like we walked off a battlefield at the end,” said Justin Turner, who bounced between second and short during the three hour, 25-minute game. “With all the heat, the grinding, it was tough – mentally and physically.”

The Mets barely survived Sunday. At one point, they had to use Scott Hairston at second and Wright at shortstop, a position that he hadn’t played since high school. In the eighth inning alone, the Mets made eight position changes.

To further pile on the misery, it was longtime nemesis Chipper Jones who delivered the winning run with his one-out single off Bobby Parnell in the ninth inning.

“Obviously it wasn’t our day,” Parnell said. “We’ve got a little black cloud over us.”

This weekend was supposed to be the Mets’ last stand, and by dropping two of three to Atlanta – as well as losing two key players – their nine-game deficit in the wild-card race now seems like the least of their problems.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Terry Collins said about the Mets’ dizzying number of significant injuries. “If it was something that we could prevent, we certainly would try to do that. But is just happens.”

Reyes was removed for pinch-hitter Willie Harris in the second inning. He has been diagnosed with a “mild strain” of his left hamstring – the same ailment from last month. Reyes hurt himself in the first inning as he hustled on a groundout to third base, then realized the severity when he couldn’t move on J.C. Boscan’s single up the middle.

The Mets’ shortstop missed 12 games last month because of a strained left hamstring and was forced to skip the All-Star Game for the third time in his career due to injury. Reyes pulled himself from a July 2 game against the Yankees in the third inning and was placed on the DL five days later. He was activated on July 19 but stayed on the field for less than three weeks, a troubling red flag for the pending free agent.

“I don’t know what to say except this is not a fatigue factor,” Collins said. “He takes great care of himself. I guess I don’t have an answer for you.”

Murphy’s injury was far more graphic. After his pinch-hit RBI single in the sixth inning, he replaced Willie Harris at second base for the seventh and was seriously hurt when Jose Constanza slid hard into his left leg on a stolen-base attempt, bending the joint awkwardly. Immediately, Murphy hopped into shallow rightfield and fell onto the grass.

“I was sick to my stomach for Murphy,” Collins said. “He was in a lot of pain. All he kept saying was, ‘Get me off he field, get me off the field.’ We tried to calm him down. You could tell he was hurting.”