Dear Johan - I'm sorry.

I don't quite understand why the Mets are seemingly unable to shut the door on the opposition after Johan Santana leaves the game. In his past two starts, Santana has thrown a total of 15 scoreless innings - and has received two no decisions for his trouble. The bullpen appears to have run into a wall, and to be fair, a lot of people anticipated that with the way they were (ab)used for the first month of the season. That's not entirely Jerry Manuel's fault because there is only so much you can do when two-fifths of your starting rotation is lucky to make it through the fifth inning. However, we're beginning to see the ill effects of this and it is only June 3rd.

Last night, Santana turned in seven scoreless innings... and then it got interesting. K-Rod came in during the 8th inning looking for a four-out save. Except we forgot about David Eckstein. This guy never goes away. EVER. I'd love to have him on my team, but as long as he's playing against me, I hate him (just not in the way I hate Chipper Jones, Jorge Cantu, or Willie Harris - this is respectful hate. And yes, there is such a thing in sports). Anyway, Eckstein turned in yet another terrific at bat and singled up the middle to bring home the tying run. Since K-Rod essentially screws himself into the ground and/or flies off the mound after he throws, he was absolutely nowhere near a ball that a pitcher with less freakish mechanics probably would have fielded. Before we knew it, we were in extra innings, and the 2010 New York Mets don't ever want to be in extra innings.

Sure enough, Adrian Gonzalez hit a walk-off grand slam off of Raul Valdes. Valdes hasn't looked right since he tossed those five innings in relief of John Maine. I don't know what the problem is, but he doesn't seem to be as aggressive going after hitters. Or maybe he just can't throw strikes. Either way, the bullpen needs a shot in the arm.

It's frustrating for me to watch Santana continually turn in quality starts - real quality starts, not that 3 runs in 6 innings crap - only to watch the bullpen blow the game. In 12 starts this year, Santana is 4-2 with a 2.76 ERA. The scary thing is, even his ERA is being affected by one outlier because of that awful start he had against the Phillies. WHY CAN'T THE METS WIN FOR SANTANA? I'm going to refer to him as the Zen Master from now on because that is the only possible explanation for how he hasn't killed anyone in the bullpen yet.

One last thing - Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers should have pitched a perfect game last night... except first base umpire Jim Joyce blew the call on the 27th out. After watching the replay following the game, Joyce sought Galarraga out specifically to apologize for the mistake. According to many players, Joyce is considered one of the best umpires in the game today. This might honestly be the worst blown call we've seen this season, and it's a shame it had to cost Galarraga a perfect game and a no hitter - and that Joyce will be remembered for it.