Sublime Santana Ratchets Up Rivalry

NEW YORK -- Johan Santana was mortified, disgusted. He had just committed the cardinal sin of his profession by walking the opposing pitcher.

This wasn't just any other pitcher, either. This was a pitcher who one day earlier was considered washed up, a liability in his own dugout. This was Chan Ho Park, a player considered even less a threat in the batter's box than on the mound, and now Santana had twice given Park a free pass, piling embarrassment atop humiliation.

Santana could laugh about it later, of course, because on a night when he could barely do any wrong, his lone two mistakes Wednesday were buried in the roar of a sweet pitcher's duel that was as unexpected as it was dazzling.

Santana was his usual brilliant self, pushing the Mets to a 1-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Park, though, was a virtual revelation, matching the New York ace pitch for pitch, guts for guile, and when it was over, when Santana had again proven he's the best pitcher on the East Coast and Park had saved his job, their unlikely collision had nudged this NL East rivalry back into the frenemy range.

"For baseball fans and everybody involved in baseball, they had an opportunity to watch a great game tonight," said Santana, who just might have more bite on his fastball and hypnotic spin on his off-speed pitches than he did last September, when he finished on top of his game while the rest of his teammates tumbled hard.

He blushed slightly when someone wondered how, on an evening when his pitches looked like a yo-yo on a string, his two-seam fastball managed to get away from him with Park, of all people, at the plate. "That's not a good feeling," Santana said. "That's the worst feeling for a pitcher when you walk a pitcher."

Not that the lefty ace has much reason to feel bummed, even if the Mets continued their maddening habit of hardly scoring when he's on the mound. Runs are as rare as rivers of gold when Santana pitches, and if the Phillies hadn't picked such a bad time to fumble balls, the Mets might have been the ones on the dark end of a shutout.

Working on an extra day of rest, Santana was as nasty as a cut snake, partly because the Mets have longed to take the World Series champions down a notch, but mostly because he can't bear losing. Struggling to prove he still belonged with the big club, Park didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning and, after holding the Mets scoreless over six innings, restored some stability to the shaky Philadelphia rotation.

Citi Field itself might deserve an asterisk on this night, as it introduced itself to the Phillies for the first time. There are few better defensive teams in baseball than Philadelphia, but the visitors had several awkward moments in the new ballpark, none more damaging than the Phillies' third error of the night, after Carlos Delgado drew a leadoff walk from reliever Scott Eyre in the seventh. Two outs later, against Chad Durbin, pinch hitter Fernando Tatis slapped a broken-bat chopper down the third base line. Pedro Feliz's charging throw to first flew wide left, into the outfield, and when right fielder Jayson Werth hesitated on the throw, Delgado chugged home without the need of CPR.

"When you're in a pitching duel, any type of flinch can lead to deciding the game. They happened to flinch on that particular play," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. Funny, he had spent much of the pre-game talking about fundamentals, about his players making one-handed catches and unsightly slides, but now it was the Phillies paying for their clumsiness.


Santana and Park, both so masterful, both nearly untouchable, watched the lone run score from their respective benches, as into the game as they were from the first pitch. Park gave up just one hit, walked two and struck out five across six innings. Santana's line -- two hits, three walks, 10 strikeouts in seven innings -- was even more stunning. It's almost a pity they couldn't split the W.

That lack of edge Mets general manager Omar Minaya referred to the other day in quotes that sent the general manager backpedaling quicker than Jose Reyes runs? If every player had Santana's bite, the words "choke artists" might not be synonymous with the Mets. With a 4-1 record and an ERA whittled down to 0.91, Santana is fast approaching Nolan Ryan territory. "The most impressive I've seen him," Manuel said of Santana.

Spinning a cocoon around Santana, the sure-handed Mets (yep, not a typo), squeezed tight his pop-ups and waited to see which bullpen would crack first. The Mets 'pen was short thanks to extra work forced upon it this week by a bumbling defense, yet Manuel pulled Santana after seven innings, the radar gun still clocking pitches in the mid-90s. The manager would have been ripped throughout the tri-state area had his situational maneuvering not worked, but with the Mets up by a skinny run and the Philly lineup about to roll over, Manuel's hunch held.

Pedro Feliciano gave up one hit in the eighth. Francisco Rodriguez, forced to throw an extra 28 pitches one night earlier in Atlanta after Delgado dropped what would have been the game-ending pop up, nailed the ninth inning, posting zeros across for his third save in as many days. Proof once again that Santana equals magic even when his teammates can barely find home.

But what really knocked the socks off on this chilly night in Flushing was the vision of Park finding himself. He carried an 8.58 ERA into the game, his sessions with a sports psychologist failing to cure issues that threatened to end his career.

"After I talked to him, I felt freedom," Park told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "But sometimes you lost your freedom from your thoughts."

Whatever Park did against the -- – breath through his eyelids, wear garter belts, sacrifice a rubber chicken -- it worked. The Mets didn't touch him until the fifth, when Daniel Murphy rifled a two-out fastball to the gap in left-center. If outfielders Raul Ibanez and Shane Victorino were more familiar with the ballpark's spacing, the ball might have been caught. A groundout by Jeremy Reed wiped away the damage.

"Sometimes you pitch against good pitchers and you learn something during the game," Park said. "Santana pitched very aggressive, threw a lot of strikes, just like I did today. We both pitched well; they had better luck."

With Park channeling 1997, Santana had to be extra creative. He struck out the side swinging in the fourth inning, but the final pitch blew past catcher Omir Santos and Ibanez raced to first. Feliz then smashed a line drive up the middle, but Santana blocked it with his foot, played hacky sack with the ball, picked it up and gunned out Feliz.

Careless glovers? Not these Mets, not with Santana so beautifully on point. Wearing an abnormally small glove to take pre-game grounders, Delgado's touch and his humor were in sync by the fifth inning. Santana -- oh, the horror -- issued a one-out walk to Park, and then came a popup from Jimmy Rollins. The ball coasted high in foul territory, Delgado circling under it, under it, under it ... and snagging it easily, with both hands.

Never say New Yorkers have no sense of humor. They serenaded Delgado with a sarcastic cheer, and he responded in kind with a tip of the cap.

"I'd probably have been run out of town if I had dropped it," joked Delgado. "Especially if it happened against these guys."

In truth, it's near impossible to ignite a baseball flame wars these days. Perhaps the season is too fresh, with players busy perfecting their home run trots and remembering how to catch with both hands and not one.

Why, there was Rollins during batting practice, looking as if he couldn't wait to rush over and give Reyes a hug. There was a time, long before the Phillies became champions of the world, when Rollins had lots to say about the Mets, but not now, not when the Phillies have little to prove.

"We're all good friends today," Rollins said, before mimicking pulling a zipper across his lips. Gone were his long-ago declarations of Philadelphia being the "team to beat" (he might as well have said grass is green); missing were any Phillies interested in mocking the sing-song chants that once accompanied Reyes' exuberant home run trots. Of course, the Mets haven't had reason to showboat since Shea Stadium was gutted.

It will take more than typical New York bravado to tick off the Phillies, still the cream of the NL East. A few more gems from Santana might do the trick.