Those Mets

SANTANA PROVES HE'S HEALTHY, BUT ALSO PROVES HES NOT ON TOP OF HIS GAME

he early signs for Johan Santana were not very good Tuesday, but as Mets fans may recall, Santana is a lot more reliable in September than in March. In his first game appearance since last August, Santana allowed four runs and six hits over one and two-thirds innings against Houston, and required 47 pitches to do it. But Santana, who had surgery in September, was not exactly morose over the day’s events. “Mentally, you feel good because that’s one of the big steps you have to make, to finally get into a real game and see how your arm reacts to that surgery,” he said. “Over all, it felt pretty good.” After striking out the leadoff hitter Michael Bourn with a changeup, Santana gave up a home run to the second Astros batter, Kazuo Matsui. By the time the sixth batter had come to the plate, a reliever was already warming up in the Mets’ bullpen. Santana made it out of the first inning, but he could not finish the second because his pitch count was rising quickly. “They made me work today,” he said of the Astros, who won, 8-4. “They were swinging right away. But I felt good because I was able to throw all my pitches. I was a little bit off with my mechanics, releasing the ball, but that’s part of spring training. That’s what we’re here for.” The most significant aspect of the outing was that Santana said he felt fine physically and reported no problems with his surgically cleaned left elbow. Last year, he was unable to fully extend his arm when he pitched because of bone chips in his elbow, but he said he had no issues with that Tuesday and was able to throw his slider, which he had stopped doing in 2009. The last time Santana had this surgical procedure was after the 2003 season; the next year, he won the American League Cy Young Award with the Minnesota Twins. And as for his record when it counts, Santana is 47-14 with a 2.54 earned run average in August, September and October over his career, which is why no one was too worried about what happened here on Tuesday. “I don’t concern myself with Johan because of the history,” Manager Jerry Manuel said. The problems Santana had came with his mechanics, he said, and that is not uncommon during a pitcher’s first outing of spring training. As a result, his fastball command was not as crisp as it will surely be later in the spring. It was an inside fastball that Matsui — who homered on the first major league pitch he saw as a Met in 2004 — clobbered for a home run over the left-field wall. Of the 12 batters Santana faced, nine reached base or knocked in a run. “I’m a work in progress right now,” he said.