Baseball notebook: Niese latest to go down

Rookie Jonathon Niese became the New York Mets’ latest injury victim Wednesday, his season ending in frightening fashion when he tore his right hamstring while doing the splits covering first base against the St. Louis Cardinals and then collapsed during a practice pitch.

He has a complete tear of the right upper hamstring, the club said.

Fielder stopped

A phalanx of security guards and teammates prevented furious Milwaukee slugger Prince Fielder from entering the Los Angeles clubhouse late Tuesday night after a ninth-inning beaning in a game won by the host Dodgers 17-4.

The trouble started when Manny Ramirez was hit by a pitch in the seventh while Los Angeles had a nine-run lead, but it didn’t boil over until Guillermo Mota was ejected for drilling Fielder with two outs in the ninth.

Fielder took off for the Dodgers’ side of the stadium after the final out, shouting obscenities all the way to the Los Angeles clubhouse door.

Several teammates trailed behind him in a surreal scene, but Bill Hall and Casey McGehee got a grip on Fielder while a wall of security blocked him.

Notes

Boston left fielder Jason Bay reinjured his right hamstring in Wednesday night’s game at Tampa Bay and expects to miss at least the first two games of the upcoming series against the New York Yankees. Bay returned to the lineup after missing two games with a mildly strained hamstring. But he left the game after aggravating the injury running out a grounder in the eighth inning. … Pedro Martinez struck out 11 batters and worked six innings for the Double-A Reading (Pa.), in what could have been his final rehab start before joining the Philadelphia Phillies. Nine of his first 12 outs were strikeouts … George Murray, a former Army paratrooper who was stricken with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and had an emotional meeting with several of the New York Yankees two weeks ago, died Tuesday in South New Berlin, N.Y. He was 38.