Mets need injured Wright, Davis to return

This is a crucial week for the Mets, and we're not talking about the 1973 World Series rematch with the Athletics. Or the Moneyball showdown between Sandy Alderson and his stat-crunching protégé, Billy Beane.

As usual, all eyes will be across the river, at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, where the Mets' playoff aspirations frequently limp off into oblivion. With all due respect to Alderson and Beane, the Bill James Handbook isn't much help in telling the fortunes of this team. You're better off consulting an MRI result.

That's why June 22 and 24 are red-letter dates. On Wednesday, Ike Davis is scheduled to have his slow-healing left ankle examined, and two days later, David Wright will have his fractured lower back checked out.

The last time this happened, the Mets' medical staff told both to basically do nothing for three weeks, then come by for another MRI. In a sense, that news felt worse than surgery, which has a more defined timetable and rehab schedule.

"It's weird and disappointing that I can't go out there and play," David Wright said Sunday after a 7-3 loss to the Angels. "I just have to wait it out and make sure the bone heals correctly before I really start amping up the workouts."

Waiting for a bone to heal, unlike calculating someone's OPS-plus, is an inexact science, which again leaves the Mets at the mercy of elements beyond their control. Without Davis and Wright, Terry Collins tends to get stuck with situations such as Sunday's ninth inning. That's when he sent up Scott Hairston to bat for Daniel Murphy, the Mets' de facto cleanup hitter, as Angels lefty Scott Downs trotted in from the bullpen.

The Mets had rallied for three runs that inning but still trailed 7-3. At best, Hairston could have homered -- as he did twice in his previous seven at-bats -- and the Mets still would have faced a two-run deficit with Angel Pagan and Jason Bay due up.

It was just the principle of the whole thing -- having to remove your No. 4 hitter for matchup purposes. Murphy doesn't fit the cleanup profile anyway, but that's the reality of the Mets' situation, one made significantly worse by Bay's power void.

"I thought if he hit the ball out of the ballpark there, we might create some energy," said Collins, explaining the Hairston move. "He didn't, but that was the thought process. If he hits it off the fence -- or hits it over the fence like he has been doing -- that bench could come alive and anything could happen."

That's what it's come down to. Collins feels as if he needs a pinch hitter merely to reach the fence. It would be nice if someone in his own lineup, say the cleanup hitter, could smack a pitch over the wall at Citi Field, just as Angels No. 8 hitter Jeff Mathis, batting .195, did to Manny Acosta in the sixth.

Overall, the Mets' offensive numbers look fine. Heading into Sunday, their .282 average since May 22 was the third-highest in the majors and their .340 on-base percentage ranked fifth. They have scored 304 runs, more than the Phillies and good enough for fifth in the NL.

They're also 4½ games back in the wild-card race. But there's a feeling that won't last with the way their lineup is patched together. If Davis and Wright don't get favorable checkups, that could sour the outlook for the second half.

"Right now, I think we're kind of keeping our heads above water,'' said Bay, who has been like a cinder block around the Mets' ankles lately. Losses like Sunday's, however, make the Mets realize how hard it can be to stay afloat.