PORT ST. LUCIE – Alex Rodriguez swallows the spotlight. The Back Page this spring has been dominated by A-Roid.
There is another baseball story out there that should have New Yorkers concerned: Johan Santana’s tightness in his left elbow.
No one on the Mets is more competitive than Santana, who has tendinitis in his left triceps. He made it clear yesterday that his tight left elbow is more than the usual spring training speed bump. It’s going to be a while before he pitches in a spring training game.
Considering all that, he should not be the Opening Day starter.
The Mets need to do the right thing now and shut down Santana until the pain eases. There is too much at stake here. He will test the elbow this morning at 10:15 with a light bullpen session, but the Mets are playing with fire and may get burned.
At this point, Opening Day for Santana should not be on the Mets’ radar. Everything the Mets have done this offseason has centered on Santana and pitching. They made the choice not to go after Manny Ramirez and instead beefed up the bullpen by adding Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz, so this will not be another year with 29 blown saves.
If Santana’s elbow gets worse, everything goes out the window.
This is not Santana’s first ride around the spring training block. Asked if starting Opening Day is a priority for him, he gave this telling answer.
“I’m not going to rush anything,” said Santana, who last threw on Wednesday. “I have 162 games. With what we want to accomplish, we have 162 games. We’ve got to go one game at a time and everything starts April 6. Whether it’s going to be me or somebody else, that’s tough to say right now.”
It makes more sense to schedule Santana for an MRI exam just to make sure that he is not at risk for major damage. Until this problem surfaced, Santana said he had been throwing every other day, something he said he was not used to doing in spring training. That has not worked well. Also, there is the possibility Santana pushed too quickly when he thought he would be pitching in the World Baseball Classic.
The pain is in the back of the elbow, an irritated triceps tendon.
“I always go through a lot of tightness in my whole body,” Santana said. “It was just that day I felt like ‘Wow.’ ”
Right now it’s Mets fans who should be tight.
Oliver Perez is off to the WBC, so who knows how that could affect him. A doomsday scenario for the Mets has Perez pushing it too hard in the World Baseball Classic and Santana’s elbow tightness becoming a more serious injury.
The Mets keep saying there is a lot of time, and there is, but there is also a lot of time to be concerned. The problem for Santana is he has yet to even face one batter in practice this spring. The clock is ticking. He will need some side sessions and two or three batting practice sessions before he can get even an inning under his belt.
His first spring training start is probably going to be around mid-March. And that’s only if all goes well. The Mets need to slow it all down.
Santana is so right, the season is 162 games. For the Mets to be successful, they need Santana to make 30-plus starts as he has done each of the last five seasons.
As Santana was talking to reporters in the clubhouse, in the background, music was playing. It was the Drifters singing, “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
The Mets can’t forget who’s taking them home. It will be Johan Santana. A little more rest would be a good thing. If his elbow is not 100 percent this season, the Mets have no chance of going to that dance.
