PORT ST. LUCIE — Johan Santana may have to get used to being in Florida.
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 going to be pitching again,” Santana said yesterday, a day after manager Terry Collins announced Santana would stay behind in Florida when the team leaves for New York.
“And that’s the thing,” Santana said. “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 till we can do this without any problem.”
His pessimism didn’t surprise Collins.
“I talk to this guy every single day,” the manager said. “I’ve kind of had that feeling for a while.”
Collins pointed to the fact Santana didn’t throw at all this winter and declined to put a date on when the former ace might get to Citi Field.
“He’s going to be very cautious, making sure his shoulder is the same strength it was last year when he left [spring training],” Collins said after the Mets beat the Nationals, 3-1, at Tradition Field.
Since Santana only began throwing in February, Collins guessed it could be May — if not longer — before the pitcher is ready for the majors.
“We’re starting in basically February this year,” Collins said. “I don’t know necessarily it’s going to take four months, but it may take six weeks to get him where he wants to be.”
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,” said Santana, who stands by his decision to rest during the offseason rather than beginning his usual program in December. “I was very excited about it and then everything changed in whatever, a few days.”
That was last month, 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 yesterday, which doesn’t leave him particularly close to pitching.
Despite that, Santana is not concerned about missing a significant piece of the season, mostly because he refuses to look that far ahead.
“I’m not worried about that right now at all,” Santana said. “I’m just going to make sure [to] 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 general manager Sandy Alderson commented that Santana wasn’t in pitching shape and shed doubt on his offseason workout program.
“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.”
And Santana made no guarantees he would regain the form he had a year ago.
“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 going to battle and try to come back and help as much as I can. When is that going to happen? I don’t really know. All I know is [that] I have to work and make sure that I get back into pitching.”