Every time he takes that mound is a small personal holiday in my mind. Last night was the first time I was able to experience The Johan Santana Show™ in person at Citi Field. As Johan himself told reporters after his victory over the Nationals, "It was crazy, I'm telling you, like the weirdest game ever."When you see that the opposition was handed 6 walks by the starting pitcher in the box score, one's mind doesn't even drift into Santana territory. Ollie Perez sure, but Santana no. Well an almost Perez-like victory was what Santana achieved last night. From my seats up in Section 506 you don't exactly get the best view of the strike zone, but you get a general idea. That general idea told me he was getting squeezed last night on calls it appeared young Jordan Zimmermann was getting.
I'm thinking in particular to this Ryan Zimmerman at bat which set up a 2 run monster to Adam Dunn, and this walk to Maxwell that caused Santana to lose his composure out there. He even walked in a run in that terrible fourth. I've read that the strike zone looked fine to some, but not to me and clearly not to him. "I felt good," Santana said after the game. "I was throwing my pitches, I was hitting my spots, some missed calls by the ump. Things that you can't control. We weren't getting the calls and all of a sudden it becomes a mess."
Despite the walks he was still able to fan 11 (though can you imagine how many more he would have had if he was getting that inside corner?) throughout his 6.0 IP. Thanks to young Daniel Murhpy's coming out party at the plate, the Mets were able to tack on a few more runs and hand Santana the victory before his official departure. Not the game I thought I was going to see heading into it, but he looked impressive nevertheless. Now the anticipation of the next episode of The Johan Santana Show™ on June 2nd.
Posts
stumble it!