Dear Johan, welcome to New York :-)

Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday...opening day, 2005. Pedro's first start as a Met. They were playing the Reds, and Pedro wasn't lights out, but he was good. I think the score was 6-3 Mets when Pedro was taken out, either in the 6th or 7th inning. The bullpen imploded, and the Reds came back with three runs on back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Mets, 7-6.

I thought to myself, "Pedro is gonna hate it here."

Well, three years and countless missed starts later, Pedro and the Mets are even. We screw you, you screw us. It's a nice symbiotic relationship. I'm over it.

Enter: Johan Santana. The answer to all of our hopes and dreams. We put up a nice 7-spot for him in his first start and let him do the rest. But we aren't paying him to beat the Marlins. We're paying him to beat the Braves, Phillies, and any A.L. team we might run into...oh, let's say in the end of October.

Coincidently, in Pedro's second start as a Met, he faced...the Atlanta Braves, and....JOHN SMOLTZ! I remember that game just as vividly as Pedro's first game. Smoltz dominated and struck out 15 Mets, but got into some trouble in his last inning of work where Carlos Beltran hit a two-run job to put the Mets up 2-1 and knock Smoltzy out of the game. Pedro did his job, only allowing one run, and God answered our prayers by giving him some run support.

Johan was not so lucky today.

Like Pedro, Santana faced the Braves and Smoltz in his second start, and did everything we could ask of him. He only allowed a single run to a dangerous Braves lineup (ask John Maine), but with all of our offensive weapons, we couldn't offer him a single run to support his effort! That is, until the 9th inning, after Heilman allowed an extra two runs to be tacked on, so our deficit was 3-0.

It's understandable that Santana had a 15-13 record with a 3.something E.R.A. last year in Minnesota. He will not be a happy camper if he yields the same results this season in New York with such an incredibly potent offense "supporting" him.

Run support, you fools. Give him some!