Mets ‘understand’ Darling’s Amazin’ injury frustrations

MIAMI — Ron Darling isn’t the only one fed up watching Mets get hurt.

“When injuries happen, people get frustrated,” assistant general manager John Ricco said Wednesday, a day after Robert Gsellman became the latest Mets player to go down with an injury. “Fans, front office, people around the team. So … I understand the frustration.”

Gsellman went on the 10day DL with a strained left hamstring and the Mets have now lost six starting pitchers to injuries this season.

And though Ricco said the organization is constantly evaluating its training protocols, no major changes are in the works.

“It’s easy to start painting a broad brush as to the reasons,” Ricco said. “You get frustrated, but as an organization, we have to take a logical approach to it. We have a lot of confidence in the guys on the medical side. As a team, they’re as good a group as there is.”

Given the dire results, especially this season, that’s debatable.

Even Ricco acknowledged the reality that the Mets have seen a significant number of key players go down.

“You look at the quality of guys we’ve lost, it’s gonna be a topic,” Ricco said. “We want to see our best players out on the field. When you see a number of them hurt, it’s a valid question.”

It is one Darling, the exMet and current SNY analyst, asked after watching Gsellman pull up as he ran to first base in Tuesday’s game against the Marlins.

“You know, if baseball — and I’m not talking about the Mets — if baseball at some point doesn’t get these newbie trainers and get them in a room with some of the old trainers and people that took care of baseball players and how to keep them healthy and get them in a room and try to tap into some of their knowledge of how you train baseball players — not weight lifters, not six-pack wearers — baseball players, they’re doing a disservice to their million-dollar athletes that they’re paying,” Darling said on the broadcast. “It’s a joke to watch this each and every night.”

Not surprisingly, Darling’s comments garnered plenty of attention.

Asked by The Post on Wednesday to expound on his comments, Darling reiterated it was a baseball-wide problem and not one that the Mets alone were dealing with. He also insisted he wasn’t knocking Mike Barwis, the organizations’ advisor of strength and conditioning, who works with players in the offseason and during the spring at the team’s facility in Port St. Lucie.

“Of course not,” Darling said. “I don’t even know the guy. I would never call out someone I don’t know. I’m just saying that, considering a lot of the old-timers, whether it’s [Jim] Kaat, [Nolan] Ryan, the ability to do baseball things was very important.”