Take your pick. J.J. Putz has two excuses why he pitched so horribly as the Mets setup man.
Putz, who is scheduled for arthroscopic elbow surgery tomorrow, blamed his injured elbow and a lack of intensity when he comes into a game in the eighth inning as the reason for his early-season struggles in Flushing.
“I don’t think it’s become the ninth inning for me,” Putz told WFAN’s Ed Randall. “A lot of that has to do with not being able to use my best stuff. When I get back from this elbow and I am 100 percent then I think we will have a better gague on if the eighth inning is my new ninth.”
The timeline for Putz’s recovery was expected to be two months, but the former Mariners closer said “best case is 10 weeks” from tomorrow’s procedure. That means that even everything goes as well as expected, the Amazin’s won’t see Putz back until Aug. 18. Putz injured his elbow in Seattle, but doctors there told him that he wouldn’t need surgery.
“You just feel helpless,” Putz said. “You are doing everything you can to get outs with very-below-average stuff. It’s frustrating, but at the same time I have a job to do and my job is to pitch. I did everything I could to go out there and pitch.
“Mentally, it’s a train wreck. You have the reputation of kind of being an animal out there — a very aggressive pitcher — when you can’t reach back and know it’s going to be pain free, it’s very difficult to pitch that way.”
The Mets acquired Putz from the Mariners as part of a three-team deal on Dec. 10 during baseball’s Winter Meetings. The move, which came days after GM Omar Minaya signed Francisco Rodriguez to be the team’s closer, seemed brilliant at the time. The Mets have a $9 million option to bring back Putz next season, but he would have to show a lot in the season’s final month to earn that paycheck.
“That’s not up to me, they have the option, but I love playing for this team,” Putz said. “I am not disappointed about being the eighth-inning guy. This is a great ballclub to be on. It’s a great group of guys and they are all committed to winning, so I am grateful to be part of a winning team, but it’s really hard to explain that there’s really nothing like the ninth. I got two chances to save when Frankie needed a day and you definitely miss that feeling.”
More than anything, Putz pointed to his ailing elbow as the reason for his 1-4 record and 5.22 ERA.
“Whenever I let myself get out there and extend it felt like a little ice pick in my elbow every time I got out there and finished the pitch,” Putz said. “What ended up happening was I changed my mechanics so much to throw without pain and that’s what led to the drop in velocity.
“I just really couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t fair to myself, to the team, to Jerry (Manuel). The starting pitchers go out there and give you everything they got and I go in there with 70 percent of what I can do. It ended up being too much.”