The fickle finger of fate has struck David Wright and the Mets again.
The announcement came in the sixth inning on the night the Mets' bid for the first 162-0 season in major league history was unceremoniously denied, and soon the club was handing out the following statement:
"[Monday] night, David Wright jammed the fifth finger of his right hand. An X-ray revealed a small fracture at the middle joint of the finger. This is a non-operative injury. The finger will be splinted and reevaluated [today]. David can return to baseball activity as tolerated."
With apologies to the late Ted Williams, no one around the Mets will be calling Wright The Splendid Splint any time soon.
How can the baseball gods be so cruel? Just when Terry Collins and the Mets, who didn't pitch, hit or field in last night's 6-2 loss to the Nationals, were embarking on a Miracle Mets sequel?
A fractured pinky diving back to first? Are you kidding me?
There is no crying in baseball.
Alas, Mets fans, getcha hankies ready, the disabled list is one procedural move away.
Wright will be evaluated today by a hand specialist at the Hospital For Special Surgery and be fitted with a custom-made splint.
Best-case scenario: Wright, who claims throwing isn't a problem, plays through the pain as early as Friday.
But we have learned Metical developments almost always tilt toward worst-case scenarios.
"If it's not something they have to set, you deal with the pain and you can play through it," Collins said.
But the very reason Collins would not let Wright play last night — so his .583 swing doesn't change — is the very reason he should err on the side of caution here, and DL Wright if he must.
Wright showed up at the ballpark wanting to play with his swollen pinky, even though he couldn't grip a bat.
Collins wouldn't let him.
Wright move, wronged franchise.
The Wright move by a manager who made the kind of tough, smart judgment that has too often eluded organizational decision-makers in the handling of stars such as Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran.
Collins has learned with the Mets, a molehill can become a mountain, and he isn't interested in climbing one.
If he's lucky, this one won't be Mount Madoff.
"If I can't play sooner rather than later, I understand — they can't go and be down a man for 10 days or so," Wright said. "Ultimately it's not my decision, but obviously I don't want to go on the DL. No one ever wants to go on the DL, but sometimes it just works out that way, and hopefully that's not the case this time."
If it is the case this time, the third base candidates include Ronny Cedeno, who went 3-for-4 replacing Wright last night, Justin Turner and yes, Daniel Murphy.
It is Collins' job to save the David Wrights of the world from themselves. The gamers who will play on despite a fractured back.
"This one," Collins said before the game, "I'm going to take it out of his hands."
Their conversation during the pregame stretch went something like this:
Wright: "If you want me to play I'll play."
Collins: "I did that last year for three-and-a-half weeks when you had a broken back, and I'm not about to lose you for three months, I can't afford that. You know what's going to happen, you're going to play with this thing, if we don't care of it right now, we're going to look up in two weeks and you're going to be struggling with your swing and now we got to come up with excuses and we finally tell everybody, well, you got a hand that's been bothering you for two weeks, it's not a very smart decision."
Wright is like Derek Jeter in this regard: He will play through all kinds of distress unless you tell him he can't.
"It's always frustrating to miss time," Wright said. "I feel like it kind of breaks up the momentum that we had. I never would have thought that I'd be able to manage to fracture a finger trying to dive back into first not getting picked off."
The Mets pushed Reyes to play in May 2009 rather than putting him on the disabled list, and five months later, he snapped his hamstring tendon, necessitating surgery. Beltran underwent knee surgery by his personal physician in January 2010 after consenting to the Mets' request he rehab instead.
Break up the Mets? Those cruel baseball gods just did.
steve.serby@nypost.com
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