And then he realized what throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to Jose Lobaton, his backup catcher and fellow Venezuelan, probably really signified: a farewell after a six-and-a-half-year tenure with an organization that had stuck with him through injuries, inconsistency and a kidnapping, in front of the fan base that had come to love him as “The Buffalo.”

“I wasn’t wrong,” Ramos said in Spanish.

Ramos, 29, said this late last week, sitting in a golf cart under the stands at Charlotte Sports Park. Sturdy as ever, he wore his new garb, a navy-blue Tampa Bay Rays shirt and sky-blue shorts, fidgeting with the team’s workout schedule for the day on the steering wheel. He was a three-hour drive from the Nationals’ new spring training complex in West Palm Beach, whose opening he had been looking forward to because it was just minutes from his year-round home.

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Ramos said he would be there if he had his way. He said he wanted to re-sign with the Nationals, but that it quickly became apparent that the club didn’t want to give him the money he believed he deserved, even in a deflated market. And so he moved on.

“They treated me great,” said Ramos, whose replacement on the Nationals, Matt Wieters, had been signed the previous day. “I learned a lot from experienced players in the organization, and, look, I think I did a very good job. I think I helped the team. And I don’t have anything bad to say about them. I’m very happy to have been with that organization and what I did for them.”

Once it was obvious he wouldn’t return, Ramos became one of the more intriguing players on the free agent market because he batted .307 with an .850 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and 22 home runs in 2016 — all career highs — but was damaged goods without a firm return date. How much was a team willing to pay a catcher recovering from a torn ACL that would prevent him from catching until at least midseason, after posting perhaps the best offensive season by a catcher in 2016?

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The answer, the Rays determined, was $12 million guaranteed over two years plus plate-appearance incentives spanning the two seasons and escalators based on games caught in 2017, all of which could bring the grand total to $18.25 million. It was a deal Ramos would’ve balked at before his injury — he had turned down a three-year, $33 million offer from the Nationals in August — and a price the small-market Rays, never in the hunt for top-tier free agents, were willing to pay for a potential all-star bat.

“I wouldn’t have expected that he would be a guy that we had a chance on before the injury,” Rays senior vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said.

You wouldn’t know Ramos had undergone ACL surgery in October if not for the scar down the middle of his right kneecap. He has only dealt with minor pain over the past month, after spending the bulk of his winter strengthening the area around his knee, particularly the quadriceps, in sessions he often shared on Instagram and Twitter. He is walking without a limp, and has recently worked up to jogging and pool exercises. But he still hasn’t resumed baseball activities, not even playing catch, and said he was waiting for a customized knee brace before taking that step.

It was Ramos’s second major ACL injury in the knee, but he emphasized that the first, suffered in 2012, wasn’t a tear, so the knee then was just cleaned and healed. This one was a complete tear and required ligament replacement.

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“The rehabilitation for this type of injury is very slow,” Ramos said. “Sometimes I’d go to physical therapy and I left feeling like I hadn’t done anything. Just some simple knee massages. That was the day. I wanted to do more things to recover faster. But everything is step by step, and that’s what I had to do.”

The opportunity to be a designated hitter was a factor in Ramos deciding on the Rays, and his goal is to make his season debut as one in late May. But he is unsure when he will be cleared to catch. Money will provide motivation: Among those aforementioned incentives is that if he reaches 55 games caught this season, his 2018 salary climbs $2 million. He would then receive $250,000 for every five games he catches up to 75 games, which could total another $1 million.

“I’ve always seen my job as behind the plate, but if they give me the opportunity to be the DH to protect the knee, I’ll try to do my job offensively,” Ramos said. “I’ll always be available, once I recover from the knee completely, to go behind the plate.”

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Tampa Bay will need him because, barring an acquisition, the Rays’ collection of catchers will topped by Luke Maile — a .214 hitter in 57 career major league games — and Curt Casali — a .195 hitter in 152 games — until Ramos is given the green light this summer.

Meanwhile, the Nationals have moved on, if awkwardly: first to Derek Norris and then, as of last week, to Wieters. Ramos — still No. 40 and The Buffalo around these parts — has, too.

“I’m happy,” he said.