It’s a fact: Every team experiences some sort of injuries over the course of a 162-game season.

For some reason however, it always seems the Mets are plagued with the injury bug more so than other teams.

This year was no different, as Mike Pelfrey went down early, Ruben Tejada missed time and now Johan Santana has been shut down.

But an injury that was overlooked in the big picture that has had a crippling effect has been Dillon Gee’s blood clot right before the All-Star break.

Gee was just 6-7 with a 4.10 ERA in 17 starts, so you may be asking how this injury was so detrimental. But look at his game logs, and you’ll see how vital he was to the Mets’ first half success.

In those 17 starts, Gee tallied 12 quality starts. The Mets however only won six of those games, proving the offense and bullpen were of course futile.

Throw out his first three starts of the season (even though he threw a seven-inning gem against the Braves in his second start), and Gee threw quality starts in 11 of his final 14 games.

What more can you ask of your fifth starter?

Gee’s record was not indicative of how he performed this season. It’s a shame that he went on the disabled when he did, because he was just coming off a stellar eight-inning, one-run outing against the Cubs right before the break.

While the outlandish two-out RBI stats played a role in carrying the Mets during the first half, it really was the starting pitching that kept the Mets relevant. R.A. Dickey, Johan Santana and Jon Niese did the heavy lifting, but Gee was right there being a consistent anchor.

SNY showed a stat last night that Mets’ starting pitchers’ ERA so far in the second half is 4.74. This obviously has played a role in the team’s downfall.

It’s curious that the Mets didn’t immediately give Matt Harvey the chance to fill Gee’s spot in the rotation while the team still had a fleeting chance. Harvey has looked great in the bigs so far and would have almost certainly done a better job than Miguel Batista and Jeremy Hefner.

Either way, what’s done is done, and now we all just hope for the speedy recovery of Gee. Though he won’t return this season, Gee is making good progress.

Considering that the Mets have other pressing needs (mainly the outfield and the bullpen), expect the starting rotation to look something like this: R.A. Dickey, a healthy and well-rested Johan Santana, Jon Niese, Matt Harvey and Dillon Gee. Based on track record, Santana will likely get hurt at some point, which then opens the door for Zack Wheeler.

This is actually a decent rotation when everyone is performing up to par. Now if the team can only hit a little…