Johan Santana - Our last Great Hope

Unlike most of the other Mets, our expectations for Johan Santana are very high.  We will depend on him probably too much.  We need him to be a Cy Young type pitcher, who wins twenty games.  We can hope all we want for Pelfrey, Perez and Maine to step up and have comeback years.  We can't expect that much from all three of them.

Santana has a career record of 122 wins and 60 losses with a 3.12 ERA.  He won two Cy Young Awards as a Minnesota Twin.  In his two seasons with the Mets he is 29 wins and 16 loses with a 2.78 ERA.  Last year with a sore elbow, he still finished 13-9 with a 3.13 ERA, missing the last month of the season.

Santana is an amazing competitor.  He is apparently healthy this year, having recovered from elbow surgery.  Today, Sunday March 14th, he gave all Mets fans hope for the coming season.  He pitched four shutout innings against the Marlins.  He gave up three hits, no walks, and struck out four.  Apparently his changeup was nasty.

We desperately need Johan to be our leader on the field this year.  Unfortunately, he can only be on the field once every five games.  He needs lots of help from both his pitching counterparts and his offense.  C'mon David, Jeff, Daniel and Jason.  You must step up big.  And Jose and Carlos, get healthy soon.  We need you in the lineup no later than the end of April.

Let's go, Mets!