By BRIAN LEWIS

June 24, 2008

On Sunday it sounded like Luis Castillo was headed to the disabled list, but there he was starting last night's game against Seattle. But even if his sore legs came through that fine, his days as a full-time player may be ending, with the Mets forced to limit him to part-time duty.

"I want to play every game I can. That's all. I want to be healthy. We've started to play better and I want to be with the team, want to be with the guys," said Castillo, who had offseason knee surgery, missed time with a sore left hamstring and then sat three of the previous four games with a left quad.

"We're going to try to play him and rest him and then see how he responds after the games," manager Jerry Manuel said. "We're going to do everything we can to get him playing but somewhat rested and see what happens."

One of those measures could be turning him into a three or four-games-per-week player, Manuel saying, "I'm hoping that he doesn't, but if to get him to perform at his peak, if that's what it takes, then we might have to go with it."

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Ryan Church took batting practice, shagged fly balls and ran full sprints. Assuming he comes through that fine - and he claims he's been symptom-free since going on the DL after suffering a concussion - he could start a rehab assignment in Brooklyn tomorrow or Thursday, and return versus the Yankees this weekend.

"It's all depending on how I react to baseball activities. We'll see how it is [today]," Church said. "I was just getting frustrated at having to sit out 15 days, but now I look at it as not having to stress and worry, so going on the DL helped.

"We were in uncharted waters when I came back; we didn't know how I'd respond. I came back and did a little too much too soon and it finally caught up with me. Now everybody's on the same page. I was just trying to chief it out, see if I could get through it, but it caught up to me. It wasn't helping me and it sure wasn't helping the team."