Swamigp’s Weblog

Johan Santana showed the other New York team what they could have had, throwing 7 2/3 innings after a slow start in a 7-4 victory over the woeful Yankees. David Wright and Jose Reyes homered in a three run seventh inning to back Santana’s solid start, giving the Mets a comfortable lead. Santana made the Yankees brass, Hank Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman, rethink their decision this past off-season by pitching very effectively after allowing a two run homer to Derek Jeter in the first inning. Even though he allowed three homers (Giambi and Abreu being the others who went deep), he baffled the Yankees bats otherwise, striking out five and allowing 7 hits in his longest outing of the year. He picked a good time do have it, as the Mets are trying to right their way out of a miserable slump.

This win was huge, not only for Santana, but for the rest of the Mets organization. Willie Randolph, the teams’ manager, has been feeling the heat over the past couple of weeks because of the poor offensive performances by his star players. Jose Reyes, being one of his star players who has struggled, has hit just .263 this year, playing very inconsistently. He, like Carlos Beltran, hoped that he could get off the snide with a good game. Reyes and Beltran did just that; Reyes had a solo homer in the seventh inning to widen the margin to 4-2 and Beltran contributed three hits, scoring twice as well as driving in a run.

Andy Pettitte, the Yankees starter, pitched pretty well over his six innings. He retired the first five batters he faced by strikeout, and seemed in control until the 4th inning. Noted by the YES network commentators, Pettitte’s rough inning so far this season has been the fourth. He seems to pitch well before and after, but can’t get out of the vaunted 4th unscathed. This game was no different as he allowed three straight singles and a walk to start the inning, including a run-scoring single by Beltran. He regained his composure enough to get Carlos Delgado and Damion Easley on a pop-out and a strikeout. That’s when the real trouble started as Pettitte collapsed once again. On a 3-2 count, he lost Brian Schneider, walking in the tying run. On another long count, Luis Castillo single on a ground-ball back to Pettitte to help the Mets gain the lead.

Santana settled down from there on, allowing only two hits over the next 4 innings, a Jeter single, whom was thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double and a homer by Giambi. Bobby Abreu hit the third homer by the Yankees of the game, but it was obviously not enough, as Santana controlled the damage throughout. Billy Wagner got the final 4 outs to secure his 9th save of the season.

Kyle Farnsworth, the Yankees middle reliever allowed the first three hitters to reach. Reyes led off the inning with a solo shot, Ryan Church walked and David Wright lowered the sledgehammer with a two run home run, his 8th of the year, to make the score 6-2.

The Yankees could have had Santana (5-2), the Mets ace, easily this off-season but lost the bidding war with the crosstown rival for what some would say a lesser package of prospects. Two of the players the Yankees would have given up, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes, each have ERA’s hovering around nine (as well as going winless so far this year) and are either hurt (like Hughes) or recently demoted (like Kennedy). I understand the reasoning by the Yankees front office to not pull the trigger for Santana, but sometimes you have to take a risk. The storied franchise hasn’t won a world title in 7 years, and is coming off another disappointing playoffs run. The least you could do is gain a front of the line starter for the next 8 years. If the team wants to be a winner every year and the Yankees certainly want to, they acquire the players needed to do so. Santana presumably could’ve brought the Yankees more firepower in the rotation than they currently possess (but who knows with the pressure that comes with being a Yankee…. see Carl Pavano).