Someone Please Shut Rick Peterson Up

A pissed off Johan Santana shot back at rumors started by former Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson for saying Santana’s surgically repaired left knee is the reason.

“How did he know that my knee hurts?” Santana said before the Mets played the Orioles. “That’s the question that I have. You guys tell me how did he find that out? Because it is crazy. Not even the trainers know. Not even me. I didn’t know my knee hurts. Just put it that way.”

Santana said his location was the only problem he experienced while surrendering a career-high nine runs in a 15-0 loss to the Yankees on Sunday. Santana, who had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in the knee last October, made no mention of his knee bothering him Sunday.

But Peterson, said he has heard the knee is a factor and is a big reason why Santana has a 6.50 ERA over his past six starts.

Peterson called Santana’s health “a major concern” for the Mets.

“I know it’s been reported that he’s had a blister on his middle finger, and that certainly can be a major, major detriment for a pitcher,” Peterson told ESPN 1050′s Brandon Tierney this morning. “And then there’s been some rumors that you hear about his knee being a little bit bothersome right now.

“And when that starts to happen, when you’ve got a finger issue and you have that knee issue like he had before, you really start to get a little concerned about that.”

The Mets strongly denied Peterson’s assertion that Santana’s knee is bothering him, saying the only issues he is having are related to the blisters and perhaps the back soreness that hit him last month.

“How would Rick Peterson know what’s going on with the Mets?” a team official said angrily.

Wow, maybe someone should give Peterson a job so that he’d stop chirping so much…