BY Adam Rubin DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER  Updated Tuesday, August 25th 2009, 4:18 PM  Mets ace Johan Santana heads to the showers early as his season ends with the announcement he'll need arthroscopic surgery on his elbow.  MIAMI - Johan Santana's season is over, but the diagnosis could have been worse. The ace will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove bone chips from his left elbow and insists he will be fully recovered for next season.  "Believe me, I'm going to be ready to go for 2010," Santana said. "I know myself very well."  Santana insisted he would have completed this season had the Mets been in contention - as he did last year while pitching with a torn meniscus in his left knee - and that the team had insisted that he shut it down. Santana noted that he dealt with similar discomfort caused by bone chips in 2003 with the Twins. That time, the lefthander gutted through the season and then had surgery. Santana fully recovered by spring training and had his lone 20-win season in 2004.  "If it would have been a different situation I would have kept pitching," Santana said. "This is not the first time this happened to me. I have been through this before."  Santana was examined at the Hospital for Special Surgery Tuesday. The team had been aware Santana was experiencing discomfort since before the All-Star break, but Santana told trainers after his last start that his range of motion now was being affected.  "Once I get into the game, I don't really think about what I have in my arm or if I have any bone chips," Santana said. "I believe what happened is the recovery time between starts was taking longer."  Still, Santana said: "Right before the All-Star break, that's when I started feeling something uncomfortable in my arm. It was not even close to what it is right now."  â¢ J.J. Putz was scratched from a scheduled rehab start with Brooklyn and Jerry Manuel said he's "not optimistic" the reliever will pitch again this season because of a slight tear to the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Putz, who halted his simulated game after 19 pitches Saturday at Citi Field, six pitches short of the target, is not expected to need surgery, however.  â¢ Oliver Perez was sent back to New York to get his balky right knee examined. Pat Misch is expected to replace Perez for Friday's start in Chicago. "I think it's been a factor all year long," pitching coach Dan Warthen said about Perez's knee. "We've never seen Oliver throw a ball over 91 or 92 mph at any time this year."  As for Santana, Warthen said: "The thing with chips is they may not bother you for two weeks or three weeks, but sometimes they float and they get into a dangerous area. I think that probably happened more than anything. At times it didn't hurt him. It really didn't bother him. He was able to pitch a couple of different times and then the last few you could see the velocity going down and you start to really concern yourself. Johan never, ever says anything about his own physical pain. And he actually finally came clean and said, 'This thing is kind of bugging me.' "  Santana, 30, finishes the season with a 13-9 record and 3.13 ERA. He logged 1662/3 innings. The shutdown snaps a streak of five straight seasons exceeding 200 innings - the second-longest active streak in the majors behind Mark Buehrle's eight straight.  "The stuff was still decent," Warthen said. "I thought he had lost a lot of location and was really working hard to make pitches. . . . The only thing that we would ever worry about is him changing a delivery. We felt we started to see him start to 'cheat underneath' the baseball a little bit more. He wouldn't say it, but you watch the video, you can see. He will on occasion get under a baseball anyway and really try to turn over a changeup. But you saw that a little more on his fastball."  Santana said the trouble he had with his left elbow during spring training, diagnosed as a flexor tendon problem, was unrelated.  "I'm disappointed because I wanted to keep pitching and help my team," Santana said. "At the same time I'm relieved because I know everything has been clarified. I know the damage is not the worst."
Johan Santana will have his elbow cleaned out, ending his season, but the ace should be fine for 2010, the Mets announced. Team doctor David Altchek examined Santana at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Santana will have bone chips removed.