I watched a few innings of the Mets-Atlanta game last night and the Johan vs. Derek Lowe matchup was a treat. Johan was his nasty self but suffered the occasional curse of the strikeout pitcher — needing a lot of pitches to do his excellent work.

So, in the seventh inning and after 108 pitches, Mets manager Jerry Manuel took out his ace.

What happened next has become familiar to Twins fans this season.

A 1-1 tie became an 8-3 Mets loss. Santana is now 4-24-3 with an 0.78 ERA and a tad bit frustrated. After the game, he walked the manager behind the bus and showed him the tires: “When Jerry came in he didn’t ask me how I felt or anything. He just called to the bullpen. I guess the decision was made,” Santana told the New York Daily News. “He’s the manager. In the past he has been able to make decisions that work out for us. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case tonight.”

Here’s the rest of that report.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 9:51 am 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.