Mets Morning News: Santana's Not Returning, Mets Officially Eliminated,Wilson's Painting

Johan Santana will not pitch in the majors this year, and he also won't be making a rehab start for Single-A Savannah today. Manager Terry Collins told reporters:

"I just think, for him to come here, even for one outing, we were asking for a bad experience afterwards. … [Rehab coordinator] Randy Niemann told me today he's gonna be ready for spring training and that's good enough for me."

As for Savannah, the team is playing in the South Atlantic League championship series, and Santana doesn't feel it's his place to participate.

Most Mets fans have known for a while that the team would not be making the playoffs this season. That became official yesterday, as the Mets were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

"It's obviously disappointing," David Wright said. "It's another year we're not going to the playoffs. You would've thought with the resources we have and the players we've had that we would've had the opportunity to go to the playoffs more than once (in 2006) and that hasn't happened. But there's only one thing to do and that's play better. We have to try to finish strong and next year figure out a way to get it done."

Jason Bay added:

"I think it's foolish to think that all the pieces are here. And that's no slight to anybody, that's looking at the other teams in baseball and what they're doing and how they're doing it.

"Every team's got some pieces, we probably have a few more than others. But I think it would definitely take maybe a piece or two more. Are those pieces getting back Ike and Johan and having other guys step up, have myself have a better year, have guys have career years? That's how a lot of those things work - you get a lot of contributions.

"A lot of things have to go right and a lot of things haven't gone right for us."

Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner unveiled a painting completed of them illustrating that play from the 1986 World Series. You may have heard of it. The play where the ball gets by Buckner? Wilson said the two men were tired of doing the same photo over and over again, so:

"We wanted to do something special. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years now, and we could not ever quite decide on what to do . . . And we thought that this was the best way to do it, with both of us having equal billing, you could say, on the painting. That’s how it all came about."

In case you're wondering, all proceeds from the painting which can be purchased at theplay86.com, will go to Wilson and Buckner.

"As you know, Bill’s been out the game quite a while. He just started managing again this year [in the independent Can-Am League]. And I’ve been out of the game for a while. I’ve been back and forth, off and on. And we have part-time jobs. As you know, that little 8x10 that the collectors and the promoters have been selling for years now is old and worn-out."