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Here's John Harper, with-- I must hand it to him-- a great friggin' you-are-there read in the Snooze. (It's nice to have a reminder-- however rare-- of why a good beat reporter is an unmatchable fan asset.)
FORT MYERS, Fla. - I've been behind the plate, catching Johan Santana for perhaps 10 minutes, so far thrilled that nothing has escaped my glove, and grateful that only one pitch has confirmed my concern that 88 mph stings like hell when it nails you squarely on the palm.
However, Santana is about to make this more demanding than I ever expected, telling me during a quick break that he'll now pitch to the Phillies' lineup, at least in his head, and I'll be calling the pitches against Jimmy Rollins and friends.
"You go over the scouting report?" he deadpans, and for a moment, knowing how hyper-competitive Santana is, I'm not completely convinced that he's kidding. Finally he cracks a smile, but adds, "This is for real. I'm bouncing my slider with (Ryan) Howard up there. Got your cup on?"
Suddenly I'm wondering if this was such a good idea. An aging ex-college second baseman, I'd done this once before, with Tom Glavine when he signed with the Mets, but that was 80-mph indoors without equipment. Rocking-chair stuff.
This is full equipment - yes, protective cup and all - in the sunshine on a gorgeous ballfield at Florida Gulf Coast University, a dozen or so of the Gulf Coast players watching curiously, and Santana taking every throwing session these days seriously as he comes back from surgery that removed bone chips in his elbow.
To this point, the two-time Cy Young winner has made it surprisingly easy. For one thing, his precision is such that, after setting up just off one corner of the plate or the other, at his command, I barely have to move the glove to catch each pitch. For another, a week before he reports to spring training with the Mets next week, it's still too early for him to rev his fastball up to 90-plus.
Not that 88 - his estimate - didn't stun me a little at first.
After all, when Santana agreed to let me do this, I expected to be wowed by his vaunted changeup, and indeed, you can't appreciate how much it looks at first like his fastball, or how late it dives or darts away at 78 mph, until you see it from this up-close vantage point.
Yet I was struck most by how sneaky-fast he is, because of a compact delivery that makes it seem as if the ball appears suddenly from behind his left ear. It's a delivery he had to alter last year, because the bone chips in his elbow wouldn't allow him to cock his arm at such a dramatic angle, and the fact that he can do it effortlessly again, post-surgery, delights him to no end.
"I was out here last year," he says later, demonstrating after he's finished throwing how he had to release the ball a foot or so farther away from his head"It makes a huge difference to the hitter. They get a much better look. Now I'm back to where I need to be. I can hide the fastball and I can extend and finish on my changeup again. It's why I feel so great. I feel like I'm going to have a big year."
Santana, 30, makes it clear that he understands how important it is for him to set the tone for a comeback season for the Mets. He is aware of all the skepticism among Mets fans after a winter of relative inactivity, but insists that he believes this is still a championship team in the making.
"I know this team is looking for me to lead the way, and I'm up to the challenge," he says. "That's why they brought me here. We all know what happened last year. We couldn't stay healthy. But I really believe the pieces are in place, that you are going to see guys like Ollie (Perez) and (Mike) Pelfrey and (John) Maine pitch at a high level this season.
"Even a guy like (Kelvim) Escobar. He's healthy again and I've known him a long time, I know how he can pitch and I know the mentality he brings. He's tough. We need to have that toughness around. We need to build our confidence up again and then if we stay healthy, I believe we'll have a great year."
Such talk speaks to the huge leap of faith in Pelfrey, Maine, and Perez that Mets' brass is making by deciding not to sign even one free-agent starter. And obviously it's hard for fans to buy at the moment, but if Santana is ready to have another Cy Young-like season, it's not impossible to think a lot of pieces could fall into place around him.
As it is, working this closely with Santana I get a sense of what makes him special. On one hand, he loves making baseball fun, keeping the mood light with people around him, myself included on this day, but on the other, he brings a somewhat startling intensity to even these types of informal workouts.
"It's all about preparation," he says.
Which brings us back to the Phillies. Santana wants more from his workout than just throwing his fastball, slider, and changeup, and indeed he says that in every bullpen session he throws he visualizes pitching to specific hitters, because he wants every pitch to have a purpose.
"I like to visualize because I always want to picture something," he said. "It's never just throwing."
With that in mind, Chris Correnti, the Mets' conditioning coach working with Santana, places a wooden silhouette of a hitter in the righthanded batter's box and says, "Victorino up first."
And with that I'm suddenly thinking about trying to get Shane Victorino out, putting down fingers, calling for a fastball away, a changeup, a backdoor slider and an absolutely killer changeup for strike three.
Easy enough. Same for Rollins. Santana hits his spots, always on or just off the corner, in or out. Of the 40 or so pitches he threw, in fact, only one pitch leaked into the middle of the plate, and that brought a grunt of disgust from the lefty.
Rollins goes down on a 1-2 fastball on the inside corner, and Correnti moves the silhouette to the left side to simulate Chase Utley. This time Santana just misses the corners enough to walk Utley, to another grunt of disgust, and so now I'm envisioning Ryan Howard's hulking frame in the lefty box.
Santana throws a fastball on the outside corner, a changeup down, and then, as promised, bounces a slider just off the outside corner that caroms off my arm, 15 feet away to my left.
I scramble to retrieve the ball, happy that I got a piece of it, not realizing until I turn to throw that Santana is staring me down.
"Utley's at second," he says. "What'd you think, I was going to throw (Howard) a cookie there? Now I'm in a tough spot."
I know he's kidding. Isn't he? No smile this time. Santana is in work mode. He takes these simulated games seriously because he takes a thinking man's approach with each hitter, watching the swings they take, trying to decide when they might be sitting on his changeup.
"You have to outsmart hitters," he says. "You have to have a game plan."
Now, with Utley in scoring position, Santana throws a fastball on the inside corner to make the count 1-2, then shakes off my changeup signal and wants another slider. Uh-oh. This time it's just on the corner, diving down and away below the knees.
I'm the one calling pitches, and this one is borderline, but as I look up, Santana isn't waiting for my call. For him it was a near-perfect pitch, strike three to end the workout. I'm not about to argue with a future Hall of Famer. I'm just glad he's smiling now.
In fact, what comes through most on this day is just how happy Santana is to be throwing free and easy again, with the bone chips out of his elbow, and how much he believes he can lead the Mets back to contention, no matter what moves they did or didn't make this winter.
"I know I have to be at the top of my game," he says. "And I believe I will be."
I get the feeling he'll expect the same from his catchers. As I can now attest, he has a way of making you want to raise your game.
"We'll work on that scouting report later," he says to me as I'm getting ready to leave.
At least this time I know he really is kidding. |
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