PORT ST. LUCIE — Forget Opening Day, there’s no telling when Johan Santana will be ready to pitch in the majors, and even Santana can’t predict what kind of pitcher he’ll be once he gets back there.
The lefty is still unsure about when he’s going to be able to get back on a mound, let alone suit up for the Mets.
“I just don’t know when I’m gonna be pitching again,” Santana said at his locker Saturday morning, one day after Terry Collins announced the obvious: that Santana would stay behind in Florida when the team leaves for New York. “And that’s the thing. We cannot think ahead. The way we’re approaching everything is, every day make sure we have a good day, so tomorrow we come back and we’ll do it again ’til we can do this without any problem.”
Santana said he’s “making progress” in building up strength in his shoulder, but signs of it are hard to find.
“Coming into spring training, I felt great,” Santana said. “I was very excited about it and then everything changed in whatever, a few days.”
That was in February, when the team became alarmed by his lack of arm strength and stopped him from throwing off a mound.
He was scheduled to long-toss from 90 feet Saturday, which doesn’t leave him particularly close to pitching.
Despite that, he said he’s not concerned about missing a significant piece of the season, mostly because he’s not thinking that far ahead.
“I’m not worried about that right now at all,” Santana said. “I’m just gonna make sure and focus that whatever I do is to get better to be stronger and whenever I come back, it will be for the rest of the season.”
He has no regrets about stepping on the mound on March 3, the day after GM Sandy Alderson commented said he wasn’t in pitching shape and shed doubt on his offseason workout program.
On Saturday, Santana defended the move and criticized the media for its portrayal of the session.
“You guys got everything wrong, because that was a flat ground,” Santana said. “It was a different thing. That’s what I don’t want to get into details [about], but that wasn’t a bullpen session at all, what you guys wrote about. It was part of my routine, but instead of doing it on the grass, I did it on the mound with a catcher in front of the plate. That had nothing to do with it.”
The same goes for resting during the offseason.
“Overall, I felt great coming into spring training,” Santana said.
He added he’s disappointed about not being able to make the trip north with the team and added he would “hopefully get on a mound soon.”
There will be great uncertainty regarding what kind of pitcher the former Cy Young winner will be once he returns. When asked if he was confident he could regain the form he had a year ago, Santana made no guarantees.
“I’ve been in this game for a while,” Santana said. “I went through a lot a couple of years ago [with the shoulder surgery] and I’m still here. I’m gonna battle and try to come back and help as much as I can. When is that gonna happen? I don’t really know. All I know is [that] I have to work and make sure that I get back into pitching.”