Jul 14 2006 10:16 AM
More on Bannister from today's New York Times
July 14, 2006
Mets’ Bannister: Forgotten, but Not Gone
By IRA BERKOW
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., July 12 — It looked lonely on the ball field. Under an overcast morning sky, with a wind picking up that swayed the nearby palm trees and portended rain, a man alone — a man who had seemingly and suddenly fallen off the baseball map — threw from the mound.
Brian Bannister wore a Mets cap, a blue short-sleeve shirt, gray knee-length shorts with a Mets insignia and thigh-high black socks. He threw to a masked catcher in a batting cage. A coach stood in the batter’s box without a bat. A radar gun was off to the side of the cage. No one else was on the field at the Mets’ spring-training complex.
Brian Bannister, who has a 2-0 record and a
2.89 earned run average in five starts, has
not pitched for the Mets since he was injured
running the bases in a game against the
Giants on April 26
“Fastball away,” called the coach, Steve Merriman.
Pop. “Excellent,” Merriman said. The radar gun posted 86 miles an hour.
“Cutter right there,” Merriman motioned to the inside, having moved from the right side of the batter’s box to the left.
Pop. “Good, repeat it,” he said.
Bannister nodded, wound up and fired again.
“Bingo!” Merriman said, ending the session after 40 scheduled pitches, as the sky grew darker.
Bannister is the bright 25-year-old, right-handed rookie pitcher who, with an outstanding spring training, unexpectedly cracked the Mets’ starting rotation. But less than a month into the season, he was back here for rehabilitation. At first, it was to heal a pulled hamstring muscle in his right leg, an injury sustained while running the bases in San Francisco in a game against the Giants on April 26. Later it was to overcome a problem with sciatic nerve tissue that had formed around the hamstring when his muscles atrophied in his thigh.
While Bannister was gone, the Mets built a huge lead in the National League East and found themselves touted as a potential World Series team. None of it, of course, had to do with Bannister, who was out of sight, out of mind in Port. St. Lucie. Now, after nearly three months away, he may actually be getting closer to returning.
“His explosiveness is coming back,” said Merriman, who has been working with Bannister since his injury. “He has a big-league mentality. He hasn’t gotten depressed. He knows how to make adjustments in the physics and biomechanics of his body, tremendous attributes for a big-league pitcher.’’
On Saturday, Bannister, who was an academic all-American when he pitched for Southern California and has developed a photography business in his hometown of Phoenix, will pitch five innings in a simulated game with the Mets’ Class A Port St. Lucie team. If all goes well, he plans to start a game next week.
At that point, New York could actually come into focus again. The Mets, for all their success this season, have had to continually improvise a starting rotation, and a healthy Bannister would be a welcome option.
Omar Minaya, the Mets’ general manager, said a return by Bannister to the starting rotation by Aug. 1 was a distinct possibility. “He’s a young pitcher who we like a lot,” Minaya said. “If all goes as planned, he’ll have two or three starts in the minor leagues in the coming weeks and then be ready for the big leagues.”
Which is good news to Bannister, who had a 2-0 record and a 2.89 earned run average in his five, sometimes high-wire, starts for the Mets in April.
“It’s hard being here, very hard, being down here for so long,’’ he said. “You get only one rookie season, and I hate spending most of it so far away. And this team has a special chemistry that money can’t buy. I went back to New York a few weeks ago to get my thigh checked again with doctors, and I visited the clubhouse. The guys kidded me about when I was coming back. And they had thrown all their extra stuff in my locker. It was funny. It was great. It’s tough missing out on all that.”
The rehab life in Port St. Lucie is not a particularly compelling one. Bannister, who is here with his wife, Megan, comes to the ballpark at about 8:30 a.m., and after workouts and deep-thigh massages, is gone by lunchtime. “You can only eat at Chili’s or Outback so many times,” he said. “And we have an unlimited membership to Blockbuster. We’ve rented so many films that they’ve got to be losing money on us.”
He said that he also watches as much baseball on television as he can. “I want to stay involved,” he said.
“You know, we came here for spring training on Feb. 11, and I wasn’t sure of making the team, though I had confidence in my ability,’’ Bannister said. “And then I made it, and we moved to New York, and we lived in a Ramada Inn near Shea Stadium until we found an apartment in Long Island City, where some other players live. And we were scheduled to move in May 1. But then we had to come down here and we’re paying rent on that apartment as we speak. We still haven’t unpacked our suitcases. Basically, it’s been a five-month road trip.”
Hamstring injuries are known to be frustrating; José Reyes’s unending hamstring problems in 2004 drove the Mets to distraction and helped lead to the installation of a new medical staff. But when Bannister first hurt himself, it did not seem that serious.
“But it was a nagging, nagging thing,” Bannister recalled Wednesday, sitting under the dugout roof of the field as rain fell. “I could throw just fine, but it bothered me when I had to run any distance. I couldn’t go off the mound to field a bunt without hobbling. I couldn’t run the bases. I wouldn’t be able to score on a sacrifice fly.”
He was so eager to return to play, however, that he made a mistake in hurrying his recovery. He pitched in a Class AAA game and unfortunately did more damage. Back to rehab.
Bannister sees some of his long stay here as a blessing. “I had nothing else to do but work on my pitching,” he said. He added that he had developed “a new curveball and a new changeup,” having learned them from Pedro Martínez and Tom Glavine. He said he was also “leaner and in better shape” than when he began spring training. “I weighed 215 then,’’ he said. “I’m down to 208 now.” He added: “I’ve only thrown 28 innings this season. When I come back, I’ll be as fresh as I was in spring training. I know I’m better now than I was then.”
The rain stopped. Bannister said he would be going to Blockbuster, but was not sure what movie he was going to rent. And what was the last one he saw?
“Mary Poppins,” he said. “That shows how bored we are.”
