The Mets announced Sunday that Johan Santana will start Opening Day at Citi Field, 19 months and three days after last pitching in the big leagues.
"It means that everything that we have done since I had my surgery, all the way to today, has been paid off," Santana said. "We worked hard and I'm very happy."
Santana's April 5 assignment will come just under 19 months removed from surgery to repair a torn anterior capsule in his left shoulder. A rare, though increasingly common operation for pitchers, shoulder capsule surgery has at best derailed careers and at worst ended them. Knowing that, Santana mostly avoided talk of Opening Day throughout the first six weeks of Spring Training. Even Collins, his manager, recently expressed surprise that Santana had made it through the bulk of camp without a single setback.
Caution rules in Port St. Lucie, where a "Prevention and Recovery" sign still hangs prominently in the clubhouse entrancewa...
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April 02, 2012
