THEM AGAIN! New York is home to numerous Comeback Player of the Year candidates, including the Yankees’ Bartolo Colon and Mets’ Jason Isringhausen (above), neither of whom played in the majors last season. (Anthony J. Causi)
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If you are heading toward Florida to seek the Fountain of Youth here is some advice: Stop. Circle back.
You might want to redo your itinerary. Forget Lourdes and consider either Yankee Stadium or Citi Field. A sport-wide trend of re-birth has found its very epicenter here, in New York. At our baseball stadiums where old is young again. It feels like a revival meeting takes place every night in the Bronx or Queens: The injured are healed and the ghosts of greatness past are revisited.
New York has not completely cornered the market on restorative power. In fact, as the first month of the season concludes you can see quite a battle for Comeback Player of the Year forming in both leagues.
For example, did anyone who saw Lance Berkman waddle around as a Yankee late last year envision him as either a full-time right fielder or a Triple Crown threat (.393 BA/8 HRs/22 RBIs)? Berkman’s St. Louis teammate Kyle Lohse was 10-18 with a 5.54 ERA the past two years combined, and he ends the first month of 2011 at 4-1 with a 1.64 ERA. That combo has enabled St. Louis to survive, to date, the season-long loss of ace Adam Wainwright.
The Indians are the surprise of 2011 and nothing has been more shocking than how well Grady Sizemore (12 extra-base hits in 11 games) has returned from microfracture knee surgery. Unless it is that Travis Hafner has gone from missing in action the past three years to the most productive DH in the AL (.959 OPS).
Chipper Jones went from a knee injury that had him talking retirement last year to being Atlanta’s toughest out again. Boston’s Josh Beckett, Tampa Bay’s James Shields and San Diego’s Aaron Harang have navigated from 5.00-plus ERAs back to prominence. Todd Helton’s bat has been reborn (.507 SLG)
for the Rockies.
And perhaps in the best comeback story of 2011: Ryan Vogelsong on Thursday made his first major league appearance since 2006, his first start since 2004 and won for the first time for the organization (San Francisco) that originally picked him in the fifth round in 1998.
Still with all the nice rebound revelries strewn across the landscape, the home office for career levitation is here in NYC.
Yes, the sample sizes are incredibly small, and
maybe we are seeing the final touches of excellence, the last laps of health. But April has been Turn Back the Clock Month in the Big Apple.
The Yankees, for example, hungered for a top-of-the-rotation starter to complement CC Sabathia all winter and, unexpectedly, have unearthed three in A.J. Burnett, 34; Freddy Garcia, 34: and Bartolo Colon, 38 this month.
Again, this is all on a limited view. Burnett, for example, was sensational early last year en route to one of the worst seasons ever by a full-time Yankees starter, and Garcia stumbled Friday.
Nevertheless, it is hard to ignore Colon’s efforts. Because, at the moment, he has No. 2 starter stuff. He was throwing 96 mph in the eighth inning in his last start. He just allowed two or fewer runs in six or more innings in consecutive starts for the first time since his first two appearances of 2007. Can he make 30 starts? Can Garcia? Both are huge physical risks. But at a moment of rotation desperation, they reached back in their pasts for something the Yankees needed.
At the outset of this weekend, in limited duty, Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones were both hitting better than .300. Alex Rodriguez, coming off a career-worst .847 OPS, spent mot of the month looking like his old MVP self. It is the restorative powers of April 2011. It is as if he never had hip surgery.
This is not universal. The graying Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada are struggling, but this feels a bit like 2009 when pretty much the Yankees’ full gambit of older players — Jeter, Posada, A-Rod, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera — excelled collectively, fueling a championship season.
Meanwhile, the more shocking element is that the Mets, long cursed when it came to health, are receiving a healthy dose of, well, health.
Carlos Beltran, after looking stiff defensively in the opening weeks, was running better and hitting similarly to his prime. Jason Bay came back from a concussion and a ribcage injury to fuel a Mets run. And Jose Reyes was running and smiling freely and, not coincidentally, playing like 2006. In the first eight games the trio played together, the Mets’ offense scored the second-most runs in the NL.
Like Colon, Jason Isringhausen did not play in the majors last season. But now remade more as a cutter/curveball guy, he has become the main setup man to Francisco Rodriguez, who has recovered from a thumb injury and also is doing good damage control on what was a tattered reputation.
Chris Capuano and Chris Young were no less a risk to the Mets than Colon and Garcia for the Yankees. Capuano, who made nine starts in the majors in the previous three seasons, has been healthy, but has not pitched particularly well. Young had a brief DL stint to heal his constantly injured arm, but — as always — has demonstrated an ability to pitch well when he can get on the mound.
If the Mets want to take some heart about their rotation, maybe they can consider the synergy of this coincidence: Colon, Jones, A-Rod, Bay, Beltran and Isringhausen were all part of the 2005 All-Star Game. So was someone else who currently is being paid by the Mets and can use the positive mojo of a restorative season:
Johan Santana.
joel.sherman@nypost.com