Valley Fever may not scare Ike Davis or NY Mets, but team must be scared about lack of depth Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/me

PORT ST. LUCIE — The Mets insist their level of concern regarding Ike Davis and his apparent case of Valley Fever is not high. Even if that's true, their level of fear is still almost surely off the charts.

It’s the same reason they have acted so quickly to keep David Wright out of at least the first few exhibition games this week, even though the third baseman insists he’s fine to play with some mild discomfort in his left rib-cage area.

If ever there is a season when any significant injuries could be deadly, it’s this one. How can it be any other way when the Mets’ best lefthanded bat off the bench may well be John Loewen, a converted pitcher with 39 major-league plate appearances, and their sixth starting pitcher apparently will be 41-year-old Miguel Batista?

In an era when depth is seemingly more crucial to a team’s success than ever, as players pushing their bodies to the limit break down all too often, the Mets have never been so vulnerable.

Depth? You want depth?

The Mets are practically the Kardashians of baseball, they have such little depth.

They refused to spend even a little money on spare parts, which means that if their injury luck from recent years doesn’t change, the 2012 season won’t just be a lost cause. It could get embarrassing.

Terry Collins would never say such a thing publicly, of course. But you didn’t have to work very hard to read between the lines on Sunday when he was explaining his ultra-cautious approach with Wright.

“I know one thing,” he said. “We’re very aware that on our club right now we’ve gotta keep our starters in the lineup. There’s no doubt we’ve gotta be aware of what’s going on. That’s why we didn’t force the issue here.”

Put it this way: the Mets are so thin that Scott Hairston’s oblique injury qualifies as a mini-crisis. After all, he is their only major-league quality backup outfielder at the moment.

Other than him it’s Loewen, Mike Baxter and Vinny Rottino fighting for that fifth spot, the three of them having combined for a total of 120 major-league plate appearances.

Those names are also the reason the Mets have formed a contingency plan, in the event that Valley Fever does knock Davis out of the lineup for any extended period, that would have Daniel Murphy move over from second base and play every day at first.

The other option would be to move Lucas Duda from right, and, all things being equal, that would be the more logical move, as the lumbering Duda seems likely to cost the Mets more defensively in right field than Murphy will at second.

But the one place the Mets have decent depth is in the infield, where Justin Turner — or Ronny Cedeno — can slide in to play second base if necessary.

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