PORT ST. LUCIE — Gary Matthews Jr. didn’t arrive in camp yesterday with the idea he is a spare part for the Mets.
The veteran outfielder worked out at Tradition Field and later seemed certain that playing time won’t be an issue for him as the Mets try to fill the vacancy in center field created by Carlos Beltran’s arthroscopic knee surgery.
The competition for the starting job is between the 35-year-old Matthews and Angel Pagan.
Matthews, acquired last month in a trade that sent reliever Brian Stokes to the Angels, doesn’t sound as if he’ll be content as the runner-up.
“I’m just thankful [the Angels] could get me to a situation where I was going to have more playing time,” Matthews said.
“It was real important to me just to have an opportunity to play, and obviously with the situation over there, it was pretty crowded. I just want to play.”
Matthews wasn’t thrilled to learn last spring that the Angels were slotting him as their fifth outfielder. After receiving the news, Matthews asked and received permission to miss an exhibition game, giving him a cooling period.
He could be facing that same fifth-outfielder scenario once Beltran returns, perhaps by the end of April, but Matthews isn’t thinking that far ahead.
“Omar [Minaya] was honest with me,” Matthews said, referring to the Mets general manager.
“He said, ‘If you come in and do the things that I know you can do, you’ll have an opportunity to play.’ That’s all anyone can ask for, and obviously I wasn’t going to have that opportunity in Anaheim.”
With the Angels, Matthews got buried behind Torii Hunter, Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera, but still managed to get 316 at-bats last year. He batted only .250 with four homers and 50 RBIs in the third season of a five-year contract worth $50 million.
The Angels still are on the hook for $21.5 million over the next two seasons, with the Mets paying only $2 million.
Mets manager Jerry Manuel appears to be leaning toward Pagan as the starting center fielder for his ability to hit leadoff — Jose Reyes likely will be shifted to third in the batting order — but says there will be an open competition for the job this spring.
“[Matthews] is a guy who is a pretty good defensive player,” Manuel said. “[Pagan] performed extremely well for us in the situation we had last year, and we have to consider that.
“But that is wide-open at this point until we can get Carlos back.”
Matthews spent spring training 2002 with the Mets and played two games for the team before he was traded to Baltimore for pitcher John Bale. He’s glad to return as an elder statesman.
“When I came here before, I was 27 years old and there were all these legends around the clubhouse: Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn, John Franco, [Al] Leiter,” Matthews said. “I come back as one of the older guys now. It makes me thankful that I’ve stuck around this long.”