Davis' oblique injury might have limited him last year, but he didn't want to use it as an excuse.
Baseball players deal with nagging injuries all the time. Sometimes they report them to their teams, and sometimes their teams bench them in an effort to avoid aggravating the injury. However, when a player is struggling, he can find himself in a complicated position.
Mets first baseman Ike Davis went through that situation last season. He said he had oblique issues for "the whole season" in an interview with the New York Post's Mike Puma, but shortly after the article was published, the 26-year-old took issue with Puma's report in a separate interview with ESPN's Adam Rubin.
Puma's article was titled "Ike Davis kept Mets in dark over injury during 2013 struggles".
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That isn't a false statement.
Davis was quoted directly in the New York Post's article.
"I probably should have said something earlier, but what are you going to do? I wanted to play better, I didn’t want to come out. If I was hitting .380, I probably would have been like, ‘Maybe I should let this cool down so I don’t miss [extensive] time,’ but when you’re hitting .200, you can’t take weeks off."
So was manager Terry Collins.
"[Davis] didn’t say anything to me or he wouldn’t have played."
Those are direct quotes, but Davis was "agitated" because he said the article made him look like he was using the injury as an "excuse" for his struggles at the plate. However, he didn't deny withholding information on his injury from the team.
Players play injured all the time. They have to, especially when they aren't the unquestioned starter at their position. Davis' situation was not unprecedented, but now that the story has been reported, the Mets might decide to be more careful with Davis in 2014 to avoid being labeled as reckless or ambivalent.