CHICAGO – Pedro Martinez’s health continued to be a shaky issue on Friday night.
Martinez is suffering from what’s believed to be food poisoning, and his condition caused him to spend a few hours in Northwestern Hospital on Friday night. The Mets ace was accompanied by trainer Ray Ramirez, but did not need to stay overnight.
“He did go down there yesterday, and what he did was, he got an IV to replace some fluids, and they did a CT scan just to check, just to see if it was an appendix,” GM Omar Minaya said yesterday before the Mets-Cubs game.
“And everything’s clear and everything was fine.” Minaya said Martinez was slated to arrive at the ballpark yesterday, and the Mets later said that the pitcher did some throwing in the outfield prior to the game.
Martinez, though, is still on the DL with an inflamed right hip and his food poisoning has made it an unknown regarding when he will next take the hill.
Martinez talked to reporters on Friday at Wrigley Field, and he was clearly weak. He said he had already lost three pounds, and he admitted he had barely been eating.
He also said, “I feel like I’ve lost all my fluid in my body,” so the IV later that night presumably aided in that issue.
“What happened was, I think yesterday at the end of the game, he had a little bit of a fever,” Minaya said.
“And we said, ‘OK, let’s just go in there and check it out, make sure everything was OK.’ ” Martinez was in the Dominican Republic over the All-Star break, and on Friday, he blamed some chicken for the problem.
He recalled that on Wednesday, “I spent the whole day just pretty much throwing up and sitting on the other end.” Meanwhile, the food poisoning has curbed Martinez’s comeback from the hip problem.
He was slated to pitch on Wednesday in Cincinnati, but Willie Randolph officially said yesterday that Steve Trachsel will go on that day instead.
The positive of Martinez’s chickencaused problem is that this will provide even more time for his hip to recuperate.
“It could be a blessing in disguise, but to me, it’s not really because you still want him to be out there on the mound and keeping his regular routine going,” Randolph said.
“So when he tells me he’s ready to get out and toss and do a bullpen and throw a simulated game, which he’ll probably have to do eventually – here, not in a rehab – then we’ll see where he fits in.” The Mets could have simply skipped Martinez anyway after the All-Star break and given both Mike Pelfrey and John Maine an additional start. As it is, Pelfrey is starting on Tuesday, Trachsel on Wednesday and Maine is now part of the relief corps.
Martinez, who was eligible to come off the DL on Friday, said that day that his hip was improved, saying, “I felt pretty good over there. I think the rest is paying off.
“And just doing treatment and working in water and doing some of the stuff that we’re doing didn’t bother me that much.”
