NEW YORK METS Piazza sidelined with groin injury

The injury could be serious enough to end his season.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Mike Piazza took a minute as he tried to pick out one positive from this dismal season before finally remembering his game-ending homer 10 days earlier.
That might end up being the last good memory Piazza has from the 2003 season. In a season full of bad news, Piazza received the worst of all Tuesday: The torn muscle in his right groin could sideline him for the rest of the year.
"It is in the back of your mind. It's the ultimate fear," Piazza said. "But I'm not looking at that right now. I just want to get the swelling out."
Serious injury
Piazza saw team physician Dr. Andrew Rokito, who said the All-Star catcher had a Grade 3 strain -- the most serious -- with the muscle partially torn off the bone. Piazza will not need surgery.
"Six weeks is certainly the low end of it," general manager Steve Phillips said. "It's hard to pinpoint beyond that."
When asked if the injury could be season-ending, Phillips said, "It's possible. We don't know. We're leaving it as an indefinite period of time. We can't pinpoint it. It depends on the symptoms and the rehab process."
Piazza was the Mets' leading hitter, batting .333 with seven homers and 15 RBIs before hurting himself trying to avoid an inside pitch from San Francisco's Jason Schmidt on Friday.
After a slow start, Piazza found his groove before the injury, hitting .500 (12-for-24) with four homers and nine RBIs in his last seven games.
"The truly frustrating part is I felt like I was swinging the bat well," he said. "I went from a low period to a high period back to a low period. To go from hitting the ball as well as I can and seeing it as well as I can to being on the training table is disappointing."
Piazza, who will be on crutches for a few days, will begin his rehab after the swelling goes down in about two weeks. While he hopes to come back as soon as he can, Piazza knows rushing will only cause more problems.
"You can only go as fast as your engine permits," he said. "If you hit the gas and nothing is there, you can't go. It's baby steps. You have to crawl before you walk. You have to take extra time because if you don't, you could reaggravate it and it's back to step one."