This Week In Mets Quotes: Terry Collins on driving in runs, Ike Davis on hitting, and Johan Santana on his recovery

But what about the runs, are you driving them

“We don’t drive runs in. There’s no secret. If I knew what it was, we’d fix it. Guys don’t drive them in. We’re not driving them in. That’s pretty much the basic line. There’s nothing wrong with the approach. We’re just not taking good swings on the pitches we can hit. We’re fouling pitches off that we should be hitting. Therefore we’re not driving them in.” —Terry Collins [ESPN]

Ike really should ditch coming out to ‘Start Me Up’ and go with ‘Same Old Song and Dance’

“Both of [my ABs] are frustrating, obviously, because you want to get a big hit in that situation. He made some good pitches, and I couldn’t really sit on his fastball because his curveball is pretty good. I just happened to be a little tardy on the fastballs.” —Ike Davis [ESPN]

There’s the problem, Ike just needs to know what pitch the pitcher plans on throwing

“Obviously, if I knew he was going to throw me a fastball 0–2 instead of a nasty breaking ball that I would have had to stay back on, I probably would have had a better swing at it. But that’s the way it goes. I had better at-bats later in the game, but those are the big ones that I didn’t get.” —Ike Davis [ESPN]

Unlike John Maine

“[David Wright] understands himself better than anybody. I have to trust his opinion of what he says. And he says he’s ready to go. I said to him yesterday, ‘I know you’re at third, but if you were standing at second, could you have scored on a single?’ And he said, yeah. He said it was just when he went to steal the base, that’s where he feels it the most. When he has a secondary lead where there’s some motion going he has no problem doing it.” —Terry Collins [ESPN]

Are you?

“But I’m glad Marlon is still here. I’m glad Bobby Parnell is still here, or anybody else who was rumored. John Buck, I saw his name mentioned today with Yadie going down. I’m glad they’re all still here, because we’re playing pretty good and I want to continue it." —Terry Collins [ESPN]

…we do still have that option

“I am in the process of rehabilitation. The operation was done by Dr. [David] Altchek and everything went successfully. I feel much better than how I felt after the first operation. I have in mind to return to the mound. The doctors did their part. Now it’s up to me for the most difficult part. Maybe I threw my last pitch for the Mets. Some say my career is over. I do not think so. … I don’t put dates on it. It is not the most prudent. They believe that in a month I already could start throwing.” —Johan Santana [Union Radio Deportes]

I’m no doctor, but I don’t think you should be throwing an object 94 MPH if you can feel loose bones in your arm

“I feel something, but it doesn’t bother me.” —Jenrry Mejia [ESPN]

Wait, did the anonymous “observer" text this or really said LOL IRL

“Valdespin being Valdespin. He pimped singles more than the home run, though. He also hit .600 against this team. LOL. That will piss people off." —Observer [ESPN]

How many turning points does a team usually have in a season?

“Well, we’ve lost three in a row. We’re not exactly a bundle of joy at the moment. So it energized us a lot. Believe me. It brought us out of a huge hole. I think it’s a great step moving forward. We may look up in two weeks and point to this game, as we have pointed to the Cubs game, as a big turning point." —Terry Collins [ESPN]

After a great run, seems like Hefner lowered his goal to just “throwing some OK pitches" in a start

“A lot I didn’t like. But what I did like was I battled. My velocity came back a little bit. I threw some OK pitches. You know, it seemed like it was 0–2, 1–2 on every batter. And then they’d foul off two and I’d throw another ball, and they’d foul off another one. I ended up walking them or they’d get a hit. It was a grind today. I’m going to have games like that. They’re much easier to take after a win, though, for sure.” —Jeremy Hefner [ESPN]

Should’ve thrown some OK pitches instead

“The balls they hit out, they were mistakes, they weren’t good pitches.” —Dillon Gee [sports.yahoo.com]

I imagine Harvey continued, ‘I was fine. The offense was not.’

“I was locating everything pretty well. The fastball command was right on point. I was keeping everything down.” —Matt Harvey [sports.yahoo.com]

This sounds like more of a Livan Hernandez quote amirite? #nomnomnom

“That’s where I need to step up and eat up more innings if a situation like that arises again. We still need to get into the next series with a fresher bullpen than we got today.” —Carlos Torres [sports.yahoo.com]

If other jobs were like being a professional athlete, the world would be a much odder place

“We were just pulling off the highway getting something to eat,“ said Johnson, who was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels out of Washington State University in the 25th round last year. “And my manager, [Jamie] Burke, called me up to the front and handed me a cell phone and said, ‘Hey, take this.’ It was Bobby Scales, our farm director. He’s just like, ‘Hey, Kyle, how are you doing?’I f you’re going up or down, that’s not really the guy you talk to. The manager usually just tells you. He’s like, ‘Hey, I just want to say congratulations. You’ve been traded to the Mets.’ I was just like, ‘OK.’ I was caught really off-guard. I didn’t really know anything about it. He asked if I had any questions, and I was just kind of speechless. It was kind of at the point right where I was really getting used to those guys when I moved. And then you come here and you start over. It’s great, too, because I’ll know a lot more people heading into spring training instead of just 25 or 30 guys I would have known if I was just in Savannah or came straight to Port St. Lucie. Now I know about 60 guys.” —Kyle Johnson, who also had to drive 16 hours to Savannah with his girlfriend post-trade [ESPN]