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HOT Houston Astros News 3/14March 14, 2010 BERKMANS GOAL IS TO START OPENING DAY By Brian McTaggart / MLB.com 03/14/10 4:45 PM EST KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- With the start of the regular season a little more than three weeks away, Astros first baseman Lance Berkman remains hopeful he will be in the lineup when Houston faces Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants on Opening Day. Berkman, who underwent arthroscopic surgery Saturday to remove loose cartilage from his left knee, met with reporters at his locker Sunday morning after a workout at Osceola County Stadium. Berkman was walking with a limp and had the knee tightly wrapped. "I can't promise it, but that's my goal," he said when asked if he would ready to play April 5. "But again, Opening Day is great, but it is just a game. I'm not going to jeopardize two or three weeks of the season if I feel I'm not ready to go on Opening Day. I either will be ready on Opening Day or will be shortly thereafter." The prognosis is Berkman will miss two to four weeks. He suffered a knee bruise during baserunning drills early in the spring and missed the first Grapefruit League game of the season. He played in the next five games, but the knee remained swollen and he had to have it drained of fluid twice before opting for surgery. Berkman, 34, underwent surgery after the 2004 season to reconstruct a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee -- an injury suffered playing flag football -- and missed the first 27 games of the '05 season. This injury is nowhere near as serious. 2010 Spring Training - Houston Astros'm glad there wasn't a torn ligament, but we knew that going in that there wasn't going to be," Berkman said. "Whenever you have a cartilage issue, that's not fun, but it's probably a little better than having to deal with that torn ligament of some kind."kman's rehab is limited to weighted leg raises, flexing his quadriceps muscle and routine icings.It's pretty mundane stuff, but it's important to get everything fired back up again," he said. "I would say in two weeks I will be able to do pretty much everything [when it comes to] baseball stuff. I'm not sure they're going to want me to play in a game at that point, but I think in two weeks I should be back to normal. We'll see."The goal for Berkman is to be in the lineup as soon as he's physically able, even if that means he'll need to use the first few games of the season to get his swing in shape. He's had only 11 at-bats in games so far this spring. "If I'm ready to go, I'm going to run out there regardless," he said. "I've done it before where I had Spring Training the first month of the season when I had knee surgery the other time. It's not an ideal situation. I'd like to have 50 or 60 at-bats down here in the spring, and I'm obviously not going to get that, but I don't think it's going to have that big of an impact. Obviously, it's the big leagues, and you need a little time to get up to speed. I feel like that I'll be all right." Berkman hit .274 with 25 homers and 80 RBIs last season and had an on-base percentage of .399, which ranked eighth in the National League. He's in the final year of a six-year, $85 million contract with a $15 million club option for 2011. |