It was 1987 and the Mets were trying to defend the World Series title. Although the lineup remained in tact, the starting pitching staff went down one at a time until a makeshift staff was forced to go out there every day. 
 
“We lost [Bob] Ojeda, [David] Cone and [Rick] Aguilera for a while,” said Bob Sikes, who was the assistant trainer for the Mets back from 1983-1991. “[Ron] Darling got hurt at the end of the year and Doc [Gooden] was out for the first two months of the season with a rehab. That was the hardest year. We couldn't keep the starters out there.”
 
Sikes has a good idea what today's Mets are going through. “Frustrating is always the word I use to describe that because you know the guys are working hard and everyone is doing what they can do,” he said, “but guys get hurt. Keith Hernandez made the observation after we won in 1986 and said that it’s very hard to repeat because of the extra games that you end up having to put on the staff. The pitchers tend to break down the following year.”
 
Although there were no playoffs for the Mets the last two seasons, Sikes knows what current trainer Ray Ramirez is going though. The two are longtime friends; Ramirez was with the Mets minor-league system during the 1980s was Sikes was with the big-league club.
 
Of course, diagnosing and treating injuries is one aspect of the job; dealing with players who never want to come out of the lineup is another. Hernandez once experienced a hamstring injury similar to the tear that has kept Jose Reyes on the shelf. Both were preventable, but unfortunately, the players sometimes hide the injuries, according to Sikes.
 
“Keith wanted to play so bad and we were in St. Louis at the old Busch Stadium and he was going from first to third and it looked like a sniper shoots him going to third,” Sikes said. “He jumps in the air and then goes down in a heap. He kept saying it was okay and it was a cramp. He wants to play and he has such stature and then he goes out a couple of days later and rips the thing in Chicago and is out a few months.”
 
Sikes thinks Reyes has the same attitude. “He may have hid the fact, because he doesn't like to take days off,” Sikes said. “When you have that kind of player, they don't like coming out. It's almost an ego thing with their self assessment with themselves. So with a player like that, they will hide it.”
 
Sikes, who is now a high school teacher, does believe that the Mets can rebound when the injuries heal, just like in 1987. “It was almost our finest hour,” Sikes said. “We blew a game on a Sunday at home. Jesse threw a ball away and we ended up losing the game. We ended up down 9 ½ and we thought that was it. We stormed back. We started getting guys back. Cone came back and Ojeda made this heroic comeback. We got Doc back. We got all these guys back. We almost came back and won the thing.”