Kuzul

NEW YORK—With five games left before the All-Star break, the Mets are trying to not let what was a surprisingly good first half turn into a disappointing finish.

After going on an amazing 21-7 stretch from May 22 through June 23, the Mets have played sub-.500 baseball over their last 11 games, going 5-6.

At times during their great 28-game run, the Mets seemed unstoppable and poised to take over the NL East. Lately, they’re managing to stay afloat and not fall too far behind the surging first-place Braves while maintaing a small lead over the pesky Phillies.

If they’d like to continue to play meaningful games past the three-day break starting Monday, the Mets will have to start supporting their ace, Johan Santana, and that starts tonight.

Johan Santana was great in his last start on Thursday against the Nationals, giving up one run in seven innings, but once again got minimal run support. The Mets scored one run en route to a 2-1 loss to Washington. Santana received a no-decision.

The Mets never can put together a game for Santana where they score five or more runs to give him major breathing room. In fact, the Mets have scored two or fewer runs in 10 of Santana’s 17 starts this season. In those games, the Mets are 1-9, with their only win coming on April 17 in St. Louis, 2-1, over the Cardinals.

Those stats show you that in 58 percent of his starts this season, the Mets have given their ace nothing to work with, and therefore lose virtually every time to show for it.

If the Mets are going to break out for Santana tonight, they’ll have to do it against Reds starter Aaron Harang. Harang was a last-minute scratch from last night’s game due to back problems, but the Reds have announced he should be fine to make his start tonight.

After a fine couple of seasons with Cincinnati in 2006 and ’07, going 32-17, Harang’s last three seasons, including this one, have been terrible.

From 2008 through his 17 starts this season, Harang is an atrocious 18-38, and his ERA is over 5.00 this season. His last three starts, though, may be an indication that he’s turning things around, not allowing more than three runs while pitching at least six innings in each start. 

Mets manager Jerry Manuel said yesterday that Jose Reyes should be able to return to the lineup tonight, but that was against Travis Wood, the left-hander. Wood pitched last night, replacing Harang, and being Reyes may only be able to bat from the right side, he may not return tonight with Harang being a right-hander.

The Mets finally have an idea of when center fielder Carlos Beltran may return. Jerry Manuel joked with reporters saying we may see him in New York this week, but that’s as a member of the Single-A affiliate Brooklyn Cyclones.

Beltran, barring a setback, should join the team in San Francisco after the All-Star break.

With the Phillies and Braves playing each other for a couple of days, the Mets need to win in order to not lose ground to either team. They have Santana going against a subpar pitcher, hoping to force a Wednesday night rubber-game.

Notable player moves:
IF/OF Fernando Tatis placed on 15-day disabled list (sprained right shoulder)
LHP Raul Valdes recalled from Triple-A Buffalo

Johan Santana vs. Cincinnati (career)
3-0, 4.20 ERA, 30 IP, 33 hits, 11 BB, 22 SO

Aaron Harang vs. New York (career)
2-3, 6.11 ERA, 28 IP, 37 hits, 12 BB, 25 SO

2010 season series (New York vs. Cincinnati)
May 3: Cincinnati 3, New York 2 (11)
May 4: New York 5, Cincinnati 4
May 5: Cincinnati 5, New York 4 (10)

July 5: Cincinnati 8, New York 6
Reds lead series 3-1

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This particular type of talk in the Mets fan base has seemed to die down a bit, but there was a period of time within the last few weeks that the gradual deterioration of Johan Santana’s stuff was fairly noticeable. It seemed Mets fans were pouncing on him from every direction just to put him down.

The point is, even now that he’s gotten things back together a bit, what you see is what you get with an aging pitcher coming off of surgery. It is concerning that Mets fans have been getting on his case so much.

For any fans still up in arms about Santana’s performance, you are asking too much.

Santana simply is not the pitcher that he was with Minnesota, and because of factors like age and injury he is not capable of putting up the same mammoth numbers. 

Despite all the criticism and clouded fan perspective, Santana is still turning in a pretty good year; right now with his ERA at 3.41 and his WHIP at 1.24.

Santana could easily have more than five wins to his name now if it wasn’t for his lack of run support. His run support average is 4.05 on the year. Most of the ace pitchers in the National League have their run support average around six.

People that put down the lack of run support argument have been heard out and understood. But honestly, the lineup does nothing when Santana pitches. He has just five wins despite his 10 quality starts. That is about five more wins Santana could potentially have padded his record with. 

He had that stretch before his handful of iffy starts. Between May 13 and June 2, Santana started five games. He went 1-0 in this stretch. He pitched at least seven innings in all five starts. He allowed runs in two of the five starts; one was the game he won. There isn’t any way to ask more from a pitcher who is shutting out opponents and not collecting wins.

There have been ups and downs, but more often than not Santana has turned in some good starting pitching.

With his downs being noticeable, fans are getting on his case. But it may not entirely be Santana’s own fault.

Sure it can be blamed on his lack of velocity, but again, it is to be expected. His velocity has been gradually been plummeting since his twilight days in a Twins uniform. In 2006, his fastball topped out at around 93 mph, and in 2009 it dropped to 90. His gradual decline was a work in progress and should come as a surprise to nobody, especially after surgery.

With this in mind, naturally his strikeouts and effectiveness against left-handed pitchers will be down. Is it a good thing for the Mets rotation? Of course not. But it should have been expected, so it is more concerning that Mets fans in general haven’t been more supportive of him.

Mets should also remember that Santana is well-known for being a second half pitcher. He knows how to pitch down the stretch. He still has time to rebound from surgery and turn his game around the best he can.

All in all, attacking Santana is unproductive. He is still putting together some solid pitching, but all fans must understand that his best days are behind. There are some limitations in his game now, and if it hampers the Mets at all, it is what it is. It isn’t like no one saw it coming.

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The New York Mets have been superb in June. They have become a bona fide contender in the National League East, and have solidified their position as a buyer rather than a seller before this season’s trade deadline.

There have been a tremendous amount of positives which have come hand-in-hand with their overall success.

Yet, in the middle of all of those positives, there has been one surprising—and alarming—dark spot for the Mets: Johan Santana.

Since Francisco Rodriguez blew a save for Santana against the Padres in the beginning of June, the Mets have played much better, while Santana has played much worse.

In that start, Santana gave up no runs and five hits in seven innings of work.

However, since then, Santana is just 1-3, while giving up at least four runs and eight hits in each of his starts, raising his ERA from 2.76 to 3.55.

While Santana doesn’t get much run support from the Mets’ offense, he can usually keep the team in the game. Recently, however, that has not been the case.

Although Santana hasn’t pitched tremendously poorly (at least not in comparison to Oliver Perez), his struggles are a cause for concern. He has given up 17 runs in his last four starts, his velocity is down, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio in June is 12-to-14. Not the type of numbers you want from your ace.

His struggles make me wonder, is something wrong with Johan Santana?

This tremendous drop off from the status quo is not common for a pitcher of Santana’s caliber, and something must be up. Does he have a nagging injury? Is he still not fully recovered from offseason surgery? What could it be?

This concern for Santana makes it even more imperative for the Mets to try and acquire a pitcher at the trade deadline. While R.A. Dickey has been pitching out of his mind, and Hisanori Takahashi has been a great replacement as well, if Santana cannot pitch for the Mets they will be in serious trouble.

While I can’t speculate any further about Santana since I’m not in the Mets’ training room, I really hope everything is alright with him, and he is just going through a rough patch. Santana is invaluable to the Mets, and if they are going to make any sort of postseason run they need him to return to form.

On a brighter note, it is a testament to the Mets, that they can play so well even while their star pitcher is faltering.

But when a pitcher like R.A. Dickey has more wins than your ace and former Cy Young Award winner, it’s a cause for concern.

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NEW YORK– He spent eight seasons as a member of the Minnesota Twins. Now, three years later, Johan Santana faces his old club for the first time ever.

Santana was quite a dominant pitcher in Minnesota. He came up in 2000 and became a full-time starter in 2004, when he won 20 games and his first of two Cy Young Awards.

He was just unbelievable. He had one of the nastiest changeups the game had seen in over 50 years, and he was as big a strikeout pitcher as there was at the time.

Take a look at these numbers from his 2004 Cy Young season— they’re jaw-dropping. That season, as a 25-year-old, Santana not only went 20-6 with a 2.61 ERA, but he allowed 72 less hits than innings pitched (156 to 228). He walked 54 and struck out an unbelievable 265 batters.

Since coming to the Mets in 2008, Santana has had his flashes of Minnesota dominance, but he hasn’t been what those numbers show. He didn’t have a bad first season, as he went 16-7 with a career-low 2.53 ERA, but his strikeouts have gone down every season since 2006.

His signature game as a New York Met came on September 27, 2008 when the Mets were on the brink of elimination. He threw a complete game against the Marlins to keep them alive for another day. That was done while pitching with a torn meniscus.

He missed his last nine starts of last season with elbow problems, and he has had surgery after both seasons with the Mets (2008 with the meniscus tear and 2009 with elbow chips).

Since he has been a Met, he has either gotten no run support, been taken out of games too early, or has blown leads in big games. Santana has also had his two worst career starts as a Met, last season against the Yankees and this season against the Phillies. The bottom line is the Mets haven’t and, at this stage in his career, will never get the Santana of his heyday in Minnesota.

They will hope, though, that he can relive his Twins days today, as the Mets will go for another home series victory when they face former Yankee Carl Pavano.

Yankees fans despise Carl Pavano, and for good reason. After a dominating 2004 season with the Marlins, going 18-8 with a 3.00 ERA, the Yankees signed him that offseason to become a big part of their rotation.

He was injured at times in 2005 with the Yankees and when he pitched, he wasn’t that great. He missed the entire 2006 season due to Tommy John surgery. When he came back in 2007, he made a grand total of two starts and missed the remainder of that season. He came back towards the end of 2008 and was horrible in his final seven starts as a Yankee. In his four seasons in the Bronx, Pavano went 9-8, with an ERA of 5.00.

After splitting time between the Indians and Twins last season, Pavano has done a good job this season. He pitched for the Twins in the 2009 playoffs.

It was clear, based on the quick turnaround, that Pavano used injuries as an excuse with the Yankees. He made all of his starts last season and is on his way to making them all this season.

So, this game is built with all sorts of pitching drama. Santana is facing the Twins for the first time ever and Pavano is back in New York as a rejuvenated pitcher. It will be intriguing, and for the Mets, they’d love to take this game to lock up another winning home stand.

Johan Santana this season (15 starts)
5-4, 3.31 ERA, 98 IP, 89 H, 31 BB, 62 SO

Carl Pavano vs. New York (career)
7-7, 3.60 ERA, 122.1 IP, 121 H, 29 BB, 65 SO

2010 season series (New York vs. Minnesota)
June 25: New York 5, Minnesota 2
Mets lead series 1-0

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On Tuesday night I was fortunate enough to get the chance to speak with a number of the New York Mets about the 2010 season and their expectations for the second half of the year.

I spoke with Jason Bay about his power outage, Ike Davis about life as a rookie, and David Wright about the “Gaga for Wright” promotion at Citi Field to try and get him to the All-Star game.

You can read about what the players think about the return of Carlos Beltran here, check out the stars’ expectations here, or read about what Santana, Wright, Bay, Francoeur, and Co. think about trading for Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt here

With those links out of the way, here are some other news and notes from batting practice with the Mets.

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The New York Mets improved to 40-30 on Tuesday night, gaining ground on the Atlanta Braves and moving back to within 1.5 games back in the NL East.

After a successful 7-2 road trip which included back-to-back sweeps, the Mets are now on a roll and they are looking to finish the first half of the season strong.

I caught up with several Mets (David Wright, Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Jeff Francoeur, and Ike Davis) before Tuesday’s victory against Detroit at Citi Field to gauge the expectations among the players about just how far this team can go in 2010.

From Santana saying the Mets have assembled a team good enough to win it all to Bay saying the team hasn’t even hit its best form yet, there is certainly a vein of confidence running through the heart of the team.

This is what the players had to say about the expectations heading in to the All-Star break.

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The New York Mets‘ Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey told the New York Daily News on Tuesday that they would in so many words welcome Seattle pitcher Cliff Lee with open arms.

“We’ve been playing great, but to go out and add a guy like (Oswalt or Lee), it might put us over the top,” Pelfrey told Peter Botte of the NY Daily News. “You would definitely love to have those guys on your team. I think those are some of the elite pitchers in the game. It definitely can help if you go out and get them.”

The Mets have had a few surprises in their rotation this year both good; Pelfrey (9-2, 2.69 ERA) and knuckle baller R.A. Dickey (5-0, 2.82) and bad; Oliver Perez (0-3, 6.28 ERA) and John Maine (1-3, 6.13 ERA).

Pelfrey and Dickey along with ace Santana, have the Mets in contention in the ultra competitive National League East. However for the Mets, history is a precursor for potential disaster and more quality starting pitching never hurt anyone.

Lee (5-3, 2.55 ERA) has had relative success in Seattle after helping guide the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 2009, with a 4-0 record, a 1.56 ERA and two complete games. His success unfortunately has done very little for the Mariners, who are in the basement of American League West.

The Mets could solidify their rotation by acquiring Lee and make a deep playoff run, not too unlike their run in 2006. In 06′ the Mets fell one win short of reaching the World Series after a heartbreaking loss against the Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS.

New York’s starting rotation consisted of Tom Glavine (15-7, 3.82 ERA), Steve Trachsel (15-8, 4.97), Pedro Martinez (9-8, 4.48 ERA), Orlando Hernandez (11-11, 4.66 ERA)  and a younger John Maine (6-5, 3.60). The arrival of the lefty would mean a rotation of Santana, Pelfrey and Lee. Coupled with the expected return of center fielder Carlos Beltran, the Mets could find themselves in unfamiliar territory.

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Unless you have been living in a “baseball bubble,” you must be aware that Ubaldo Jimenez is having an incredible season. In 14 games pitched, he’s 13-1 with a 1.15 ER. This puts him on pace to win 30-plus games this season.

But no matter what his record is, or how dominant he’s been thus far, he has not done enough in his career to prove that he’s trustworthy in a big game.

In his previous two seasons, he’s combined to go 27-24, while giving up roughly three and a half runs per game. Not to mention his postseason performances, where he’s been dreadful, and has yet to win a postseason game.

By no means am I discrediting Jimenez’s 2010 season, but get back to me in October.

If he continues this pace, then my opinion will change. Until then, he’s just another pitcher off to a remarkable start.

Let’s see how the rest of his season turns out, but in the meantime, I present “No Free Passes: The 10 Best Control Pitchers in MLB.”

These are baseball’s best pitchers, who I would trust most with a full count and the bases loaded to throw that crucial strike.

Is your most “trustworthy” pitcher on here?

Let’s find out…

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For the third time this season, Johan Santana served up a home run with the bases full, as C.C. Sabathia and the Yankees took the rubber game of a three-game set in the Bronx.

Santana had only surrendered two grand slams in his career entering the 2010 campaign, but Mark Teixeira did what Josh Willingham and Shane Victorino did earlier this year in helping the Yankees to a 4-0 victory.

The Mets were laregly ineffective against the Yankees ace, and while one big swing from Teix was the difference in the game, the fact is that Santana was anything but sharp. But where did the problems come from?

Santana was often pitching from behind in the count early on, and his fastball didn’t seem to fool anybody. His changeup was by far his best pitch, but because he was unable to locate his fastball with consistency, the Yankee hitters were able to either sit on his off-speed pitches or capitalize on mistakes.

Santana did keep the Mets in the game and he only gave up runs in the one inning, but the difference between his two main pitches was stark.

He got Nick Swisher to pop up a fly ball on a changeup at the knees after a diet of high fastballs in the first inning. Teixeira swung through a changeup away after peppering low 90s fastballs inside, and Derek Jeter looked lost on a changeup at the knees the second time up despite beating out an infield single.

A-Rod got fooled on a changeup that resulted in a check-swing dribbler down the right field line in the second inning, and he rolled over a changeup down and in when he came to bat in the third. Cervelli, too, couldn’t handle the changeup down and away after a bunch of fastballs up and in during his first at-bat, and he chopped a low changeup into a double play in the fourth.

The problem came when he was pitching out of the stretch or when he got into hitters’ counts.

He fell behind six of the first 14 batters he faced, and he was forced to throw a lot of pitches in the early stages, including 25 in the second inning when the Yankees were unable to score.

While his changeup looked good, it was his fastball that seemed more hittable than normal, lacking the normal movement we have seen in the past. When a fastball comes in flat at 89 MPH, good hitters will not miss it.

He left a fastball middle in to Posada for the Yankees’ first hit and the gave up a leadoff single to Gardner on a fastball down broadway to lead off the third. He also missed his location on a pitch to Curtis Granderson on another fastball, but the damage was minimal because of the double play that followed. The biggest mistake, however, came on a 1-1 middle-in fastball to Teixeira that he took for a grand slam home run and gave the Yankees their 4-0 lead.

Despite giving up eight hits in six innings, Santana did look better when he started mixing in his slider during the second and third times through the order. His changeup had gone from 77 MPH and darting to 81 MPH and normal, so the slider was essential for keeping hitters off balance.

By then, though, the damage had already been done and Sabathia was able to do the rest.

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Johan Santana is the most notable pitcher on the New York Mets and one of the most dangerous in all of baseball. However, his stats alone don’t echo that sentiment.

With the surge in Mike Pelfrey’s performance this season, Santana isn’t seeming much like the ace of the staff anymore. More importantly, the team’s offense is not supporting Johan like the ace that he is.

In 13 starts this season, Santana has only factored in the decision seven times and has only four wins, tied with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey for third on the team in wins. In nine of Santana’s starts, he has given up two runs or less. The Mets however, are just 5-4 in those starts.

His 2.96 ERA does not seem very Johan-like, but factor in his lone bad start. On May 2 against the Phillies, Santana gave up 10 earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings. Wiping that start off the board, his adjusted ERA stands at an impressive 1.99. That number would be good enough for fifth in the National League right now.

It isn’t Johan’s pitching falling off, though. It has been the Mets’ lethargic offense that has hurt Johan Santana this season

The Mets’ offense hasn’t scored runs for Santana, averaging just over three runs per game on days that their ace is pitching. The team scored seven runs for Santana on Opening Day against the Florida Marlins. The Mets have not scored that many runs for Johan since, and have only scored more than five runs in support of Santana once more this season.

In five of his starts of this season, Santana has not given up any earned runs. The Mets have won just two of those games, both of them in the month of April. In fact, after going 4-1 in games started by Santana in April, the Mets have gone just 2-6 since when Johan takes the mound.

Tonight, Santana starts as the Mets take on the Cleveland Indians, one of the worst teams in baseball. However, the Mets offense collides against Justin Masterson, who has been masterful in his last two starts. Expect yet another pitcher’s duel as Santana has frequently faced the best and/or hottest pitchers that his opponent can offer.

Santana is set to make $21 million this season and is under contract until 2013, with a club option in 2014. Current projections give Santana just 10 wins for this season, the lowest amount since 2002, when Johan was still in Minnesota and not used as a full-time starter.

This season especially, critics have wondered if Johan Santana is having second thoughts about joining the Mets and if pitching for New York has been the most beneficial for him. Santana is only 33-19 as a Met in his third season in New York.

With no playoff appearances in the first two seasons, could Johan’s patience be wearing thin? This time next season, will Johan Santana be the next high-profile pitcher looking for a new address?

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