David Wright, who is attempting to manage his first full season while playing with spinal stenosis will sit out Saturday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies. With the predicted bad weather, it seems a good day as any to give Wright a day of rest as he looks to stay in the lineup as much as his back allows.
“Hey, I’m worried,” Wright said. “Believe me, I worry about myself.” (Mets.com)
Wright, 33, entering his 13th season as a major leaguer on the Mets is being faced with his biggest challenge yet in managing his body. Manager, Terry Collins believes Wright will not have any issues with getting through it.
“He’s going to be fine, he’s going to be fine. He hasn’t played a lot,” manager Terry Collins said. “He’s taken a lot of time off and right now he’s about at mid-Spring Training. It’ll start warming up and these cold days are tough for him.”
Collins is said to have already spoken to Wright about this weekend and the plan is for him to play on Sunday. Collins is currently trying to figure out the best plan to help David to get on a good playing schedule that is conducive to his health.
“Terry said he wanted to talk to me about it and we’ve yet to go into details,” Wright said. “I know he said he wanted to give me one of these two days off, but it has yet to be determined.”
Wright did not get the amount of game action that most of the regulars had seen, only playing in 10 grapefruit league games. Getting his timing correct could only be a matter of games played. There has been much talk on Wright’s defense, as well as his inability to catch up to a fastball. Wright has shown against Kansas and Philadelphia though that he can still make the slow dribbler down to third play, barehanded with ease.
“It’s the way you want to do it,” Wright said. “Just like normal.”
Wright’s biggest enemy in the field thus far has been his arm. With having to throw a certain way now in order to not aggravate his back in anyway, the ball is not getting to where it needs to go as quick as it normally would. His accuracy has also been down as in yesterday’s game he pulled Lucas Duda off the bag on a routine grounder hit by Peter Bourjos. He also misplayed an infield fly, though that went in the Mets favor and turned into a double play.
“I’d like to say that that’s the way we drew it up and we worked on it in Spring Training, but that’s not quite the truth,” Wright joked.
The cold weather does not help him. It only takes longer for a player to get their bodies ready when the weather is not keen for baseball. As the summer draws closer and warmer weather on the horizon, he hopes it will only help managing the spinal stenosis.
“I feel pretty good,” he said. “I think it will be beneficial, not just for our club, but for all of baseball, when the weather warms up a little bit. But so far, so good. I had a chance to work on it in Spring Training and at least I have a decent grasp of what I have to do to prepare for a game.”
Before each game, Wright endures three hours of therapy just to get his back ready. He now takes fewer swings and less grounders each day to help manage any pain that may come. What he goes through just to play each day is incredible.
“He does this every day, every day,” Collins said. “He’s absolutely amazing, an amazing guy.”
Being the face of the franchise for a decade now, you can’t help but root for a player such as David who has such commitment to the sport. He has a daunting task ahead of being able to manage his injuries over the course of a six month season and it will be fascinating to see how he does it.
