Results tagged ‘ Johan Santana ’
Santana Does It All In Amazin’ Victory
Yes, Johan Santana is that good. Maybe only the Mets ace can surrender four home runs yet still beat the defending champion Phillies and deserve the win at that.
While JA Happ was making Phillie fans yearn for the return of Chan Ho Park, Santana was busy being a complete ballplayer in claiming a 6-5 decision over the division rivals.
Santana probably threw too many strikes (imagine if Oliver Perez knew such a concept) during his 7+ innings of work Tuesday night.
The sensational southpaw threw 50 pitches in the first five frames, an incredible 42 of which were strikes.
After getting Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez the first time around, the lefties mashed back-to-back homers the second time through the order.
The Mets were ahead 3-0 before the blasts thanks to a pair of their own. David Wright and Carlos Beltran bopped two over the left field wall. Gary Sheffield and Fernando Tatis easily could have had two more in any other ballpark.
Still, Santana relinquished a 3-0 and actually found himself down 4-3 when Jimmy Rollins, .220 average and all, smoked a two-run shot to left.
That’s when Santana stepped up… to the plate.
His answer came from the batter’s box. With two on and one out in the sixth inning, Santana took two strikes as he tried to move the runners.
Then, showing bunt on an 0-2 count, Santana pulled the ol’ butcher boy hack and scorched a double into the rightfield corner.
In the top of the seventh, Santana did it with the glove.
Protecting a 5-4 lead, the Mets ace made an unbelievable snag of Shane Victorino’s liner and threw over to first base for the double play.
Tuesday was about a pitcher helping himself.
He gave up four long balls, but walked only one batter.
He made some mistakes, but did the other things right like winners do.
Johan Santana proclaimed to Jerry Manuel, “I’m a man. I’m a man,” as the Mets ace was forced to give up the ball to the manager in the eighth inning Tuesday night.
In layman’s terms, Santana wanted to remain on the rubber. He’s a man, a grown-*** one at that, and he’s confident he can win his own game.
This man is clearly a winner.
Cora Clutch: Citi Field was rocking as Johan Santana helped himself by ripping the game-tying double to right field, but the momentum was on the verge on dissipating. The Mets had already squandered a number of scoring chances when Alex Cora stepped to the plate in the sixth inning and could not afford another one at this juncture of the game.
The game was tied at 4-4, Santana stood on second and Omir Santos on third. Luis Castillo couldn’t get them in, popping out weakly. That’s when Cora picked up his teammate and his club. He sent a Clay Condrey pitch right back up the middle to put the Mets in front for good. A Big hit for the veteran second baseman, who is batting .304 this year, on his way to a big night (2-for-5, BB, R) in the two hole.
Minor League Loss for Mets
My first game at Pittsburgh’s PNC Bank Park reminded much like the time when my girlfriend forced me to a Reading Phillies game. Except, there were more fans in Reading than there were in the ballpark Tuesday night.
From a skeleton crowd, made up mostly of Mets fans who made the trip west, to the annoying mascots the game felt like anything but a Major League experience.
Going right along with the minor league feel, the Mets put up another light-hitting lineup whose most-feared hitter was David Wright and his 54 strikeouts (187 AB).
No Jose Reyes (DL – calf), No Carlos Delgado (DL – hip), and No Carlos Beltran (who knows?).
The crowd did get to see Mets ace Johan Santana, but even he stooped down to the competition and miserable atmosphere. He allowed rope after rope during the sixth inning, his last inning of work in what wound up a 3-1 defeat.
Filling in for Beltran once again, Jeremy Reed followed up the two doubles he hit in the series opener by going 3-for-3 in game two. There’s your Mets highlight right there – Jeremy Reed’s trio of singles.
The Metropolitans went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. Fernando Martinez left two stranded in scoring position on his way to an 0-for-4 day.
Ramon Martinez left a duck on the pond with two out as well. That was before the substitute shortstop left the game with a dislocated pinky, which he injured sliding into home for the Mets lone run (can this injury situation become any more bizarre?).
Did I really drive out here for this?
The Lakewood Blueclaws may have been the better option if I wanted to take in some baseball on my week off (yes, I have another job as surpisingly my work on this blog doesn’t yield enough to pay the bills).
Despite a bad baseball atmosphere, a “B” lineup, and another tough loss, I don’t feel nearly as cheated as I have the past two Septembers.
And, yes, I’d make the drive again because I’ll always BELIEVE.
Mets Send Right Man to Mound in Battle of 57s
After a terrible loss, the Mets send the right man to the hill four game two of a four-game series in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Metsmerized has made the trip west out the Penn Pike and will be in attendance at PNC Park to root on the Best Pitcher in Baseball.
Mets’ starter Johan Santana leads the National League in ERA (1.77) and strikeouts (86).
The Pirates will rest their hopes on Zach Duke, who, like Santana, is a southpaw and wears No. 57. The comparisons stop there though.
Surprisingly, however, Duke isn’t having a bad year at all. Unfortunately, his team can’t say the same.
His 2.75 ERA has yielded a 5-4 record thus far.
Mets and Santana Squeezed, But Not Stopped
The Mets completed the sweep of the lowly Nationals Wednesday night. Santana gave us six strong innings (more on that later) and Daniel Murphy’s bat provided the big hits.
Rookie mistakes aside, it was a great victory for the now first-place Mets. Good teams are supposed to beat up on the cellar dwellers like the Nationals, but the Mets actually did it (short-handed nonetheless).
A shadow of what they were a few weeks ago before the injury bug bit big, the Mets started three players (F. Martinez, R. Martinez, and A. Pagan) who weren’t on the Opening Day roster yet managed to take care of business.
They say timing is everything, and how convenient for the Mets to arrive at the weakest part of their 162-game schedule at the same time a number of their big guns are headed to the disabled list. Still, the games have to be won and the Mets are doing just that.
Time to reel off three more against the Marlins who have made a habit of compounding Mets fans misery over the past two Septembers.
Umpire’s Squeeze Play: To say Johan Santana didn’t have his best stuff last night is being somewhat unfair to the Mets ace.
The Mets star southpaw struck out 11 batters, but astonishingly walked six. Don’t panic, Santana is not in danger of turning into Oliver Perez. It was clear that home plate umpire Sam Holbrook was not giving Santana the corners or anything close. It was a pretty poor piece of umpiring to be quite frank.
In fact, I think Holbrook should join Oliver Perez in the minors since neither of them seem to know what a strike looks like.
Still, Santana fought through it, worked around a home run by Adam Dunn (by far the best struck ball in Citi Field’s short history), and the Mets made him a winner.
Mr. Match-up: I couldn’t help but cringe when Manuel lifted an effective Bobby Parnell in favor of southpaw Pedro Feliciano with two outs and one on in the top of the seventh inning.
I have always believed that a pitcher’s performance should trump lefty-lefty matchups, not to mention I’ve seen Feliciano give up two bombs to lefties already this season (one by Raul Ibanez that has yet to land).
Feliciano did his job though, and, for that reason, Manuel made the right move.
Just to prove my point about how overrated the lefty-lefty matchup game is, I’ll let you know that the Nationals homered once in the game. That lone long ball was from left-handed hitting Adam Dunn off Mets left-handed ace Johan Santana.
Santana, Pelfrey Shut Up Sawx
They said the Mets had a knack for annoying opponents through their on-field celebratory antics.
But there is no way they could have been more irritating than Kevin Youkilis and the Sawx.
Is this man so full of himself that he thinks the Best Pitcher in Baseball purposely hit him with a two-out, two-strike pitch?
Santana’s response couldn’t have been more appropriate and more encouraging.
This guy claims to be a Gamer and he’s nothing short of it. It’s good to see some fire from the southpaw. The Mets need it now more than ever as injuries continue to fester. (K-Rod now? Really?)
Then, there’s Jonathan Papelbon.
I wonder if the Red Sox have a resident hair stylist hanging out in the bullpen.
Seriously, what’s with the perfectly done spiked hair bro?
Are you going in to close a game? Because that dew is more appropriate for a Saturday night out at the Jersey Shore.
Not to mention, it was you, Mr. Papelbon, not the second base umpire, who surrendered a home run to Omir Santos.
Get back in the dugout.
I don’t know about you, but even Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino and Co. don’t nauseate me as much as this Boston team.
Well, at least for just this weekend.
Manuel, Reyes Make Mess of Santana Start
The scene was all too familiar at Citi Field Monday night.
No, not the lack of offensive support for ace Johan Santana.
I’m talking about Jerry Manuel’s mismanagement of the bullpen and our favorite shortstop’s lack of focus.
Jerry, what is the sense of even sending Santana out for the seventh inning if you’re going to lift him following a one-out single?
Santana needed six pitches to get Derek Lowe on a foul out to first before Kelly Johnson smoked a liner to centerfield. But even with one out and one on, he still is the best pitcher in baseball.
Why would a manager not want the game in the hands of baseball’s top hurler even when he is 107 pitches deep into the outing?
Does Manuel really think Pedro Feliciano provides a tougher matchup for opposing batters than Santana?
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at what happened before Feliciano put the finishing touches on this one.
Manuel pulled Santana in favor of hard-throwing righty Bobby Parnell. The young gun has to excite Mets fans just for the sheer fact he’s not Aaron Heilman if nothing else.
But as Parnell showed again, he is a promising young talent and maybe the Mets most-effective reliever thus far this season other than K-Rod. Throwing darts, Parnell yielded a broken bat single and induced a can of corn to centerfield for the inning’s second out.
Apparently that wasn’t good enough for Manuel. Instead of sticking with the effective arm, Manuel absolutely needed to bring in a southpaw to face the left-handed Brian McCann.
First off, since when does McCann warrant Barry Bonds treatment, and, secondly, why are managers moronically infatuated with lefty-lefty matchups? Not to mention, I saw Raul Ibanez and Chase Utley, both batting left-handed, go deep off the Mets “lefty specialist” on back-to-back days earlier this season.
So, in came Feliciano as Manuel played the matchup game. Believe it or not, the southpaw did his job for the moment by getting a busted-bat grounder that should have ended the inning and left the score tied at one apiece.
Not if Jose Reyes has anything to do with it. Doing his best to match the loopiness and lack of focus Oliver Perez has mastered in recent months, Reyes booted the ball and opened the flood gates.
The end result was a four-run seventh inning for the Braves, a Mets’ loss, and a whole lot of unanswered head-scratchers.
If the southpaw Santana had remained in for the entire seventh inning, then Manuel would not have had to call upon Feliciano to play the lefty-lefty game when McCann came up.
Manuel made for more bewilderment when he played the situational game for McCann, but then left Feliciano in to face the right-handed Matt Diaz who promptly delivered a piss rod to left field for the go-ahead hit.
The Mets were bound to lose again sooner or later, so it’s not the snapped streak that hurts. It’s the fact that this one was given away.
Jerry, mentally, and Jose, literally, dropped the ball on this one.
Santana Sensational, But Fish Are For Real
13 K’s and 0 ER doesn’t look like the line of a losing pitcher, but it is.
Johan Santana was nothing short of spectacular again for the Mets.
Only the Marlins’ Josh Johnson was better.
Not by much, not even by something within Santana’s control. The Marlins scored their lone two runs of the 2-1 victory in the second inning following a two-out error by left fielder Daniel Murphy.
Obviously not there for his defense, Murphy carelessly tried to one hand a ball that seemed destined for his glove. His lack of focus resulted in an inning-extending, run-scoring blunder that ultimately cost the Mets the ball game.
Yes, Murphy’s miscue is inexcusable at the MLB level, but it happens. Hopefully, he’ll spend some extra time shagging flies in Tomorrow’s pregame and then show us all why he’s really here by rapping a couple of hits during the Home Opener.
The real issure isn’t Murphy or the 3-3 Mets. It’s the Marlins. The last undefeated team in the Majors before the Mets knocked them off Saturday night, the Fish are 5-1 and for real.
They had the delightful distinction of ending the Mets’ seasons each of the past two Septembers. With Johnson, the hated Hanley Ramirez, the emerging Bonafacio, and others they have the potential to inflict even more future damage.
The Mets can no longer take this team lightly. I don’t know how they could..
There’s no quetsion the Mets have more firepower and there’s no disputing Santana is the best pitcher in baseball, but they still have to prove it. There’s no better place to start then in the division against the team that has made the Mets and their fans miserable.
The Mets have 15 games remaining against Florida and they need to make the Marlins their latest catch. Their season depends on it.
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