Santana changes delivery, gets back on track

Johan Santana wasn't ready to walk off the field.

But as Mets manager Jerry Manuel ascended the dugout steps and headed toward the mound, Santana knew he couldn't stop the inevitable.

"I don't prepare myself for one inning or two innings," said Santana, who was pulled with two outs in the eighth inning after throwing 101 pitches (74 for strikes) in yesterday's 5-4, 11-inning win over San Francisco. "I prepare myself for complete innings and trying to go as long as I can in the game. I felt good. I felt like I had everything. But he thought different. He's the boss here and he decided to take me out. There's not much I can do about it."

So many questions had arisen after Santana's previous start in Philadelphia. That's why Saturday was so important to the 31-year-old lefty. It was a chance to redeem himself.

"There's always a chance for you to come back and start all over again. And that's what I was waiting for," he said. "To come back home and do it again and win like this."

Though Pedro Feliciano eventually allowed the tying run to score, preventing Santana from picking up the victory, Santana followed up Mike Pelfrey's solid Friday night performance with the longest outing by a Mets pitcher this season. He allowed four runs, eight hits and no walks and struck out six.

"My last outing, compared to this one, was bad," said Santana, who gave up a career-high 10 runs in 32/3 innings, including nine in the fourth inning, in Sunday's 11-5 loss to the Phillies. "I'm very happy that the result today was a 'W' because that's what we were looking for. In the end, it's a team effort and we did enough to win this ballgame."

Santana, who had better command and velocity Saturday than in his previous start, said he tinkered with his delivery.

"I tried to drop my glove [at the beginning of his windup] instead of keeping it up here," he said, motioning near his chest. "Trying to keep it down and relax my shoulders a little bit more and give a little bit more time to get my grip. Sometimes I was tipping my pitches and all that. So by doing that, I'm more consistent and not tipping pitches."

Santana, however, said his last outing was not the catalyst for the change. "[The coaching staff and I have] talked many times about deliveries," he said. "It was just that Saturday we felt that dropping the glove was a lot easier than what we have done in the past."

"Johan was very good Saturday . . . I thought he was outstanding, kept the ball down," said Manuel, who said Pablo Sandoval, who hit a sacrifice fly, would have been Santana's last batter regardless of pitch count. "I thought we had enough in our bullpen to get that last out.''