PORT ST. LUCIE — Johan Santana already has the Mets guessing whether his left shoulder will be ready for Opening Day.
After watching Santana throw a lackluster bullpen session on Wednesday, manager Terry Collins yesterday said the left-hander will be scratched from his March 2 spring training start against the Marlins and focus on building arm strength. The new plan calls for Santana to make his exhibition debut somewhere between March 10 and 15, according to general manager Sandy Alderson.
The Mets have ruled out a structural problem with Santana’s arm, but said he needs further conditioning.
“I haven’t gotten on the mound in a while and it takes time to get everything adjusted again and to get the pitching mode again,” said Santana, limited to playing catch over the winter as he rested his shoulder. “It takes time, so that’s all we’re doing. That’s not a setback at all, it’s just that it needs time to build up and to feel good.”
Collins had concerns about Santana’s arm speed last Sunday during a bullpen session, but thought the unusually cold weather — temperatures were in the upper 40s — played a factor. But after watching Santana throw again Wednesday, on a typical tropical Florida day, the manager became concerned.
“He didn’t have the arm speed, you could just tell,” Collins said. “One of the things that last year at this time he really showed was the great feel for the change, even though his fastball command, he was trying to build up some velocity, but at least he had the arm speed, and the other day I didn’t see much arm speed.”
Collins is still hoping Santana can make four starts this spring, gradually building to 90-95 pitches, putting him in position to start Opening Day against the Padres on April 1 at Citi Field. But the math is fuzzy, considering the manager wants Santana to have five days’ rest between starts. To get four spring training starts on that schedule, Santana would have to begin pitching on March 8, two days ahead of Alderson’s outline.
Santana, who was shut down last August, had hoped to pitch for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic next month, but the Mets this week denied his request to pursue that goal.
“When I got here, everything was prepared to be ready for the WBC and then everything changed after they decided I was not participating,” Santana said. “And then as we started getting everything ready for [exhibition] games, it just took a little bit of time.
“We still have a long way to go [in camp]. That’s the focus that we have right now — April, not tomorrow or the next couple of days. We’ve got to make sure whatever we do is to build up to April.”
Santana missed the entire season following his September 2010 surgery to repair a torn anterior capsule in his left shoulder. Last year, he pitched strong into June before injuries — including a sprained right ankle and lower back stiffness — gave the Mets reason to end his campaign in August.
“One of the reasons we shut him down was we wanted him to have maximum rest and get him back on the program he’s used to for spring training,” Collins said.
Santana participated in a long-toss yesterday and will continue that course before returning to a mound. If Santana isn’t going to be ready for the start of the season, the Mets will evaluate options such as Jenrry Mejia and Jeremy Hefner for the rotation, but probably wouldn’t put phenom Zack Wheeler into the mix unless Santana needed an extended absence.