Even the pre-emptive alibis sound convincing today. The ballpark's redesign is going to affect the Mets in plenty of obvious ways, but also in some you might not expect. "For me, like with throws from the shortstop and stuff, there used to be a huge wall there and it used to be black," Ike Davis said. "Now it's going to be not there and I'm not sure how I'm going to see the ball from the fielders when they throw it." Further complicating matters is that the Mets played a game in Tampa Wednesday, the back end of a home-and-home with the Yankees. That killed any chance of a workout day to help get comfortable at Citi Field. "There isn't a big grace period," Jason Bay said, "so we'll be learning on the fly. But it's the only option we have. It's not that we're choosing to do it this way. Hopefully, it will be enough."