MET NOTES
PITTSBURGH – The star-crossed career of Jason Isringhausen took another frustrating misstep yesterday when the right-hander felt pain in his surgically repaired elbow in the bullpen.
The Mets announced after last night’s 5-2 win over the Pirates that Isringhausen will have an MRI today in New York, but they are hopeful the pain is only the result of scar tissue breaking free and not something more serious.
“If it was an inch lower where the ligament is, then I would be worried,” he said. “But it’s not, so I’m not.”
Isringhausen said he felt something completely different in his elbow on the last two pitches of his scheduled side session in the bullpen. If all goes very well in the exam and it is only scar tissue, Isringhausen conceivably could still make his scheduled start Saturday, but if not, the Mets would press either Allen Watson or Pat Mahomes into action.
Among many other maladies, Isringhausen had reconstructive surgery in January of 1998 and made his first major-league start since then Monday night, taking the loss but pitching fairly well and showing dazzling stuff.
“Just another nice day in my life,” Isringhausen said. “It’s starting to become a joke to me. It’s pathetic. I’m tired of every time I get close something goes wrong. I’m not concerned. It’s just that it happened now.”
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Al Leiter will not pitch Sunday as previously thought. Instead, he will pitch batting practice tomorrow at Shea and if he has no pain in his knee, he will pitch either Monday or Tuesday.
Even though no one ever said there was a feud between him and Mike Piazza, Bobby Bonilla was upset yesterday because he felt that impression was taken from comments he made about a potential rehabilitation assignment.
Bonilla was asked Tuesday if he would consider going on a rehab trip to the minors before being activated from the DL and the right fielder said – with a smile on his face – he would like to have the Mets bring up minor-league pitchers to throw to him the way they did with Piazza last month.
Although none of the reporters felt Bonilla was saying anything against Piazza, Bonilla felt it came across that way.
“It was written like Mike and I are feuding,” he said. “We’re not feuding. I am upset because the way it was written was .” With all the pitching uncertainty, Bobby Valentine indicated Bonilla probably wouldn’t be activated from the DL until after the weekend because they don’t want to send a pitcher down.