Davidoff: Worried about Santana? Mets shrug, chalk it up to a bad night

PHILADELPHIA

'Crazy day," Johan Santana said late last night, shaking his head. Something tells me the Mets fans out there would've gone with a different adjective.

Just when the Mets seemed armed to leave Citizens Bank Park with both a series victory over the rival Phillies and a place atop the National League East, their ace fell to pieces. Silence reigned over the visitors' clubhouse here, as the Mets tried to shake off their stunning, 11-5 loss to the home team.

They professed that Santana simply experienced a bad night. A bad inning, to be more precise, as a 5-2 Mets lead turned into an 11-5 Phillies advantage in the memorable fourth inning.

But then again, what choice did the Mets have? The alternative ranks as too terrifying for them.

"It just goes to show you that he's human and he has bad days," David Wright said of Santana, who allowed 10 earned runs in 32/3 innings.

"It's tough," Jerry Manuel said. "We had just two bad innings" for the weekend, with Santana's disaster preceded by the Phillies' six-run fourth against Mike Pelfrey on Saturday.

Santana isn't injured, he and everyone else insisted, and look, the 31-year-old has essentially clocked two bad innings this season - Sunday's fourth, and the first inning April 11, when he gave up a grand slam to Washington's Josh Willingham.

Yet when you allow more runs than you ever have in your career, and when your velocity is down from past seasons, you're going to leave a mark on people.

The problem last night, Santana said, came when he couldn't control his fastball in the fourth. With Chase Utley on third, two outs and Raul Ibañez up, Santana tried to throw an outside fastball on a 1-and-2 pitch, but it came back toward the middle of the plate, and Ibañez ripped it to rightfield.

From there, Juan Castro singled and Carlos Ruiz walked, loading the bases for the Phillies' starting pitcher, 47-year-old Jamie Moyer. Santana fell behind Moyer 2-and-0 and 3-and-1, and after Moyer fouled off a pitch on a full count, Santana issued ball four on a high-and-inside pitch to force home Ibañez. Shane Victorino followed with a grand slam to turn a 5-4 deficit into an 8-5 Phillies lead.

"I was just trying to throw some fastballs away," Santana said. "The ball was moving. My fastball was moving all over the place. He just was patient and was able to get on base."

"Fastball command" was the buzz phrase for Santana. "When he wanted to throw the ball down the middle, he couldn't," catcher Rod Barajas said. "For some reason, he lost control, and we weren't able to make an adjustment to get it back."

The problem for the Mets, losers of two straight, is they head to Cincinnati with little assurance of what they'll be getting from Monday night's starter, Oliver Perez, or Tuesday's starter, John Maine. They need the sort of starts they had been getting from Santana, even if he hasn't been lighting up the radar gun.

It's why the Mets should consider signing Pedro Martinez as a free agent, should they stay in the playoff conversation. If they can put aside the bad blood on both sides and bring in Pedro, the Mets would improve their rotation and hurt the Phillies, who benefited from Martinez's bounce-back last year.

Right now, though, the Mets need more than a Pedro laugh to set their minds at ease. They need Santana to pitch well.

And if the other guys excelled leading up to that? Well, then there would be reason to believe, again.