Good news today as Mets ace Johan Santana threw 25 pitches during a brief bullpen session, his first work from a mound since an instructional league last Fall.
The southpaw felt great afterwards and is scheduled to throw from a mound again on Tuesday.
As he did last spring with Carlos Beltran, manager Terry Collins will work closely with Santana keeping the lines of communication open so that his ace paces himself and tries not to do too much, too soon.
“Obviously, we we have to make an adjustment on a daily basis, as we did last year with Carlos,” Collins said. “It’s going to very similar … he’s got to be honest about the whole process.” Nevertheless, Collins was all smiles after he completed his throwing session.
The big thing after today’s bullpen session will be to see how Johan’s shoulder responds tomorrow. “We’ll see how it feels tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow is definitely an important day, and we’ll see how I recover.”
The plan for now is to let Santana participate in spring training as if he were not rehabbing from an injury, reports Andy Martino of the Daily News.
Make no mistake that today was a significant step for Johan and the Mets. “I was able to throw all of my pitches and it felt good after that,” said Santana.
Collins understood the significance of that. “It’s a huge step for us,” the manager said. “It’s a big day for him, and now let’s just gradually move forward and build him up.”
Here’s a video from SNY…
