My favorite ballplayer of the hour is Juan Gonzalez, who took Johan deep for a three-run homer over the lunch hour in his first Mets inning. No. 2 on the list is Brendan Ryan (triple off Johan) and Albert Pujols (double off Johan). Yes, that’s the Juan Gonzalez with 1 AB in the last 3 years.

Are they panicking in New York yet?

Well, one commenter on a New York Post blog has weighed in:

Hey, all i’m saying is Santana better win some freaking games if he gonna walk around like he’s da Shizzle!

The guy seems to have no personality and I can only wonder if he’s gonna hold up in NY.

If you ever get a chance to see them in spring training, you stand right next to these guys. All of the Mets are great people, but Johan, write this down, shady guy, I only hope he can handle NY.

Bring back LoDuca!

Here’s the box score.

UPDATE: And here’s the “rude greeting” report from the Palm Beach Post.

And here’s the mlb.com angle, in which Johan makes the obligatory “feels good” comment.

AND FINALLY, I refuse to link to the New York Post report on Johan’s start because the reporter obviously spent his life telling his teachers that the dog ate his homework. But it starts thusly:

The Mets can only hope Johan Santana is a slow starter.

Their $137 million ace had a rough first inning today against the Cardinals in Port St. Lucie in his game debut as a Met. St. Louis took a 3-0 lead on a Juan Gonzalez home run to left against Santana, who gave up hits to three of the first five batters.

I’m not so much for belittling other journalists, but that this bubba-with-a-laptop is covering the Mets and doesn’t know that Santana is a slow starter? Lordy.

other people are here too.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.