The battery mates who started the final game of the Mets’ season embraced outside of Shea Stadium yesterday, each headed back home to start the offseason – and each seemingly in disbelief that they wouldn’t play anymore this year.
“I’m disappointed,” Ramon Castro said. “Right now, I can’t believe it. It’s crazy. It wasn’t supposed to end this soon. I woke up this morning and asked my wife what time the game was.”
For the Mets, it won’t be until April, thanks to their second consecutive late-season collapse that ended with a 4-2 defeat on Sunday to the Marlins.
“It’s been a tough two years and it’s going to be a tough offseason,” said Oliver Perez, who started the finale on three days’ rest and got a no-decision, despite pitching fairly well. I’m just going to go home and try to forget about what happened this year.”
Easier said than done.
“It could have happened to anyone,” Perez said of the disastrous end to the season. “But it happened to us again. We [didn’t] win important games, so now we don’t go to the playoffs. I did everything I could. Baseball is crazy.”
Though Castro has another year on his contract and figures to be back in a platoon role next season, Perez is a free agent, having just gone to arbitration last year with agent Scott Boras.
The 27-year-old left-hander wouldn’t commit to whether he wanted to return.
“This is the team that gave me the second opportunity to come back to the majors and I was really happy,” said Perez, who won 10 games this season and has shown flashes of brilliance, as well as inconsistency, in his two years as a Met after being traded by the Pirates. “But I have to look at everything and see what team gives me the best opportunity to win.”
As for the Mets, Castro doesn’t think that the ugly finish to this season will impact next year, even if that seems impossible to believe.
“I don’t think so,” said Castro, who also voiced his approval of Jerry Manuel’s apparent return. “Jerry did great. We’re going to have a new stadium and start over there and hopefully we’ll all come back and try to make the playoffs again.”
John Maine had arthroscopic surgery yesterday to remove a bone spur in his right (pitching) shoulder. The procedure was minor, and Maine is expected to be fully recovered in time for the start of spring training.