PORT ST. LUCIE — First baseman Carlos Delgado was sent back to New York for a MRI exam this morning because of pain in his right hip.

The exam showed what the team described as an impingement, a jamming of socket parts in the hip. That problem can lead to arthritis, although the Mets said Delgado was returning to Florida tonight and should be out only a couple of days.

The situation bears closely watching, however. It’s the same hip Delgado — who turns 36 in June — strained last September in Cincinnati. He missed the next 15 days because of that injury.