PAYING PRICE

Baxter, whose catch saved Johan’s gem, out six weeks with shoulder injury

Johan Santana better send some extra flowers to Mike Baxter’s recovery room. Baxter’s catch that preserved Santana’s no-hit bid came with collateral damage: the left fielder, who went full speed into the wall while grabbing Yadier Molina’s seventh-inning liner, displaced his right collarbone and fractured rib cartilage, according to Terry Collins.

Baxter, a Whitestone native, will miss about six weeks, Collins said, and will be placed on the DL. “I thought something was wrong, just because of the way it was feeling last night,” said Baxter, adding that doctors ruled out a concussion.

Although Baxter hit the wall with his left shoulder, the injury to his rib cage was sustained to his right side — illustrating the force of the collision. The 27-year-old crumpled on the warning track and was forced to leave Friday’s game.

Another casualty of the night was reliever Ramon Ramirez, who strained his hamstring during the celebration and will head to the DL.

Howie Rose was a defeatist Met fan until the very end. The longtime radio play-by-play announcer, who witnessed Tom Seaver’s imperfect game in 1969 as a 15-year-old fan, was in the radio booth Friday waiting for the inevitable. It wasn’t until Josh Thole squeezed Santana’s final strike that Rose allowed himself to believe. Then the words flowed.

“Surreal,” Rose said. “There’s this sort of confluence where you get to where you’ve got your emotions that are inescapable no matter how many people try to tell you that they’re subjugated — they’re not, they’re real. Then you have your professionalism, you have your job to do. So there’s kind of a tug of war going on in your stomach that you have to keep under control.”