Mets GM Sandy Alderson updated reporters on how Johan Santana was progressing from his season ending surgery, and talked about his rehab and the recovery process.
Phase 1 – Johan has gone through his recovery from the surgery. There was a healing process, a restoration of range of motion, that sort of thing. And that took about four and a half months.
Phase 2 – The second stage is a return to throwing, which is the stage he is in currently. We expect that to last maybe three months. It will involve flat ground, a gradual lengthening of the tossing and also intensity/velocity. We expect that’s going to take about three month, so that would take us maybe into … the first of May.
Phase 3 – The third phase is his actual return to pitching. The medical expectation is maybe six to eight weeks. So if you do the math, it gets you to the end of June, the middle part of July.
It sounds very optimistic and it’s an ambitious projection, but what is important to take away is that thankfully there have been no setbacks.
Here is an ESPN video of Johan discussing his rehab from surgery.
Johan still has about $77.5 million dollars owed to him for the next three seasons. It’s a sizable investment, so it’s important we dot all of our i’s and cross all of our t’s where his rehab is concerned. Let’s not go rushing him back too quickly and then regret it later on.
