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Amazin69 · 03-26-2025, 03:11 PM

So I started to reply to a post in the general MLB thread, about managers who yank pitchers after 6 no-hit innings, just because they've thrown 100 pitches…

(…or 68, as Buck Showalter did when Max Scherzer was throwing a perfect game through 6 IP, in Milwaukee in 2022…)

…but the reply ended up being very detailed and Mets-centric, so I thought I'd move it here.

**************

You probably know how I hate it when Gary Cohen pushes that fairy story about how throwing 134 pitches in The No-Hitter (only one in Mets history) against St. Louis in 2012 ruined Johan Santana's arm and (then-manager) Terry Collins regretted it and vowed never to sacrifice long-term success for short-term glory, bla-blah-blahhhhh…

…when the fact of the matter is that Johan was fine for a month after that, and this time I've brought the stats to back it up!

Short version, because all those categories won't fit here:

June 1: Johan makes history. The returning Carlos Beltran may have gotten robbed of a hit on a fair/foul call, and Whitestone NY native Mike Baxter makes a great catch slamming into the wall…and screwing up his shoulder. (Baxter is the one who suffered career-altering effects from his heroics here, not Johan.) Full Game | Highlights

June 8: After taking a few extra days' rest, Johan goes to the Bronx and gets severely beat up, as sometimes happens. A 2-run homer by HGH Cano in the 2nd, another in the 3rd (A-Roid scoring ahead of HGH, both times) and then Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones going back-to-back-to-back made it 6-0 against, but Johan got the next 7 men in order to finish the 5-inning stint. A bad night, but that's all it was. Full Game (Yankees cast, since MLB didn't offer a choice of broadcasts until 2015 or so. Apologies for Michael Kay) | "Highlights" (home recording of ESPn)

June 14: Johan's still not at his best, taking 96 pitches to struggle through 5 IP at Tampa Bay and giving up 4 runs…but the Mets completely blow Jeremy Hellickson out of the park. (8 runs in 3.2 IP, giving up 2 HR to Kirk Nieuwenhuis and another to Jason Bay) and Johan is mostly pitching with a lead and gets the Win. Full Game (Rays-cast) | SNY recap (with GKR HR calls)

June 19: back home against the Orioles, Johan is back on form. It's not great that it takes 101 pitches to complete 6 shutout innings, but still. 4 hits, 2 walks, no runs, exits with a 1-0 lead, and the Mets expand it with a 2-run shot by Lucas Duda off of Future Met Tommy Hunter in the bottom of the 6th, and a 2-RBI single by Jordany Valdespin off Dana Eveland in the 7th, while Bobby Parnell, Miguel Batista, and Jon Rauch all have uneventful innings, and the Mets win 5-0. Full Game (SNY) | WB Mason Postgame

June 25: at Wrigley Field, this time it takes Johan 102 pitches to finish the 6th, and he allows 2 runs (2-run shot by Joe "Who" Mather, who is apparently the Cubs' CF this year) and gets the L, since the Mets don't hit and the defense falls apart in the 7th (David Wright botches a pop-fly down the LF line, Duda [in RF] drops one behind 1B, and 2B Ronny Cedeno muffs a grounder), leading to Rauch being charged with 4 UER on ZERO hits, and the Mets embarass themselves, 6-1.

But still…6 IP, 5 H, 3 W, 2 R. Terry Collins wasn't blaming Johan for that one, I'm sure. Full Game (Kasper and Brenly, not bad as Cubs-casts go) | Highlights

June 30: in LA, Johan utterly stifles the Dodgers, allowing 3 H and 0 R in 8 innings (107 IP). Mets cruise to a 5-0 win, with Ike Davis getting a homer and a double off of Nathan Eovaldi. Full Game (FOX. Joe Buck says the Mets are "one of the best stories in baseball". Take it easy, Joe…it's still June.)

So, for the final three starts in June, Johan has pitched 20 innings, allowing 2 runs on 12 hits and 7 walks. ERA and WHIP both under 1.00. Clearly he's not suffering from over-exertion or whatever fairy tale Gary likes to tell himself.

But then…then comes July 6. Cubs in town.

Reed Johnson homers off of Santana to start the game.
Lucas Duda homers off of Travis Wood to tie it in the bottom of the 2nd.
Reed Johnson leads off the 3rd with a double, but Johan strands him.
Ruben Tejada (speaking of ruined careers…) walks in the 3rd, and Ronny Cedeno drops a double into the LF corner, scoring Tejada. Mets lead, 2-1
Joe Baker doubles to start the Cubs 4th, and eventually scores on a SF by Mather. 2-2

To start the 5th, Reed Johnson (again) beats out a dribbler in the 1B hole. Johan covers on the play. Johnson spikes him. If Johan comes out, his career continues and he might even make the Hall of Fame one day.

But…Johan stays in, gives up a single to Darwin Barney and then a 3-run blast to Anthony Rizzo. Johan strikes out Alfonso Soriano, but then Baker homers, and then Johan gives up consecutive singles to Geovany Soto, Mather, and Luis Valbuena, chasing him, and effectively ending his career. Cubs lead, 7-2.

(The Mets tried to rally in the 9th, down 8-4. Valdespin hit a 1-out HR, and then Carlos Marmol walked Tejada, Daniel Murphy [pinch-hitting] and David Wright to load the bases for PH Ike Davis. Ike hit a two-run single to bring the Mets to 8-7 and then Lucas Duda lined one…right back to Marmol, who doubled Ike off of 1B to end the game.)

Full Game (GKR) | Career-ending ankle-stomping AB starts here.

And that was basically that. Johan took 10 days off (helped by the All-Star break), but it wasn't enough. The spiking wrecked his stride, which wrecked his delivery, which eventually wrecked his arm. Johan made four more starts, got wrecked every single time, and never made it back to the bigs, again.

So it's darkly hilarious that Gary faults Terry Collins for letting Johan throw those 134 pitches when he was literally unhittable, when the real issue was Terry leaving an injured Johan in when he was already struggling against the Cubs and then rushing him back 10 days later.

But of course, we were in a pennant race! At 45-39 through that Cubs game, the Mets were in 2nd place, a mere 4.5 GB behind the Gnats. And look at those Wild-Card standings!

SF 46-38
CIN 45-38
NY 45-39
ATL 44-39
STL 44-30

Clearly, this was no time to be over-cautious Nervous Nellies! We needed Johan! RA Dickey and his missing tendon can't do it alone! Fight!!

But what actually happened was that the Mets went 29-49 from here on, crashing out to a 74-88 final mark and being grateful for the Fish going 69-93 to keep us from the cellar. And so yes, short-term thinking cost us long-term Johan…but that mistake was in July, not in June.

13 years overdue, but the whole thing is still a trigger for me, even though I didn't see it live. (No DirecTV that season.)

03-26-2025, 03:11 PM	#3032
Amazin69 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 3,453 Infractions: 0/2 (2)	So I started to reply to a post in the general MLB thread, about managers who yank pitchers after 6 no-hit innings, just because they've thrown 100 pitches… (…or 68, as Buck Showalter did when Max Scherzer was throwing a perfect game through 6 IP, in Milwaukee in 2022…) …but the reply ended up being very detailed and Mets-centric, so I thought I'd move it here. ************ You probably know how I hate it when Gary Cohen pushes that fairy story about how throwing 134 pitches in The No-Hitter (only one in Mets history) against St. Louis in 2012 ruined Johan Santana's arm and (then-manager) Terry Collins regretted it and vowed never to sacrifice long-term success for short-term glory, bla-blah-blahhhhh… …when the fact of the matter is that Johan was fine for a month after that, and this time I've brought the stats to back it up! Short version, because all those categories won't fit here: June 1: Johan makes history. The returning Carlos Beltran may have gotten robbed of a hit on a fair/foul call, and Whitestone NY native Mike Baxter makes a great catch slamming into the wall…and screwing up his shoulder. (Baxter is the one who suffered career-altering effects from his heroics here, not Johan.) Full Game \| Highlights June 8: After taking a few extra days' rest, Johan goes to the Bronx and gets severely beat up, as sometimes happens. A 2-run homer by HGH Cano in the 2nd, another in the 3rd (A-Roid scoring ahead of HGH, both times) and then Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones going back-to-back-to-back made it 6-0 against, but Johan got the next 7 men in order to finish the 5-inning stint. A bad night, but that's all it was. Full Game (Yankees cast, since MLB didn't offer a choice of broadcasts until 2015 or so. Apologies for Michael Kay) \| "Highlights" (home recording of ESPn) June 14: Johan's still not at his best, taking 96 pitches to struggle through 5 IP at Tampa Bay and giving up 4 runs…but the Mets completely blow Jeremy Hellickson out of the park. (8 runs in 3.2 IP, giving up 2 HR to Kirk Nieuwenhuis and another to Jason Bay) and Johan is mostly pitching with a lead and gets the Win. Full Game (Rays-cast) \| SNY recap (with GKR HR calls) June 19: back home against the Orioles, Johan is back on form. It's not great that it takes 101 pitches to complete 6 shutout innings, but still. 4 hits, 2 walks, no runs, exits with a 1-0 lead, and the Mets expand it with a 2-run shot by Lucas Duda off of Future Met Tommy Hunter in the bottom of the 6th, and a 2-RBI single by Jordany Valdespin off Dana Eveland in the 7th, while Bobby Parnell, Miguel Batista, and Jon Rauch all have uneventful innings, and the Mets win 5-0. Full Game (SNY) \| WB Mason Postgame June 25: at Wrigley Field, this time it takes Johan 102 pitches to finish the 6th, and he allows 2 runs (2-run shot by Joe "Who" Mather, who is apparently the Cubs' CF this year) and gets the L, since the Mets don't hit and the defense falls apart in the 7th (David Wright botches a pop-fly down the LF line, Duda [in RF] drops one behind 1B, and 2B Ronny Cedeno muffs a grounder), leading to Rauch being charged with 4 UER on ZERO hits, and the Mets embarass themselves, 6-1. But still…6 IP, 5 H, 3 W, 2 R. Terry Collins wasn't blaming Johan for that one, I'm sure. Full Game (Kasper and Brenly, not bad as Cubs-casts go) \| Highlights June 30: in LA, Johan utterly stifles the Dodgers, allowing 3 H and 0 R in 8 innings (107 IP). Mets cruise to a 5-0 win, with Ike Davis getting a homer and a double off of Nathan Eovaldi. Full Game (FOX. Joe Buck says the Mets are "one of the best stories in baseball". Take it easy, Joe…it's still June.) So, for the final three starts in June, Johan has pitched 20 innings, allowing 2 runs on 12 hits and 7 walks. ERA and WHIP both under 1.00. Clearly he's not suffering from over-exertion or whatever fairy tale Gary likes to tell himself. But then…then comes July 6. Cubs in town. Reed Johnson homers off of Santana to start the game. Lucas Duda homers off of Travis Wood to tie it in the bottom of the 2nd. Reed Johnson leads off the 3rd with a double, but Johan strands him. Ruben Tejada (speaking of ruined careers…) walks in the 3rd, and Ronny Cedeno drops a double into the LF corner, scoring Tejada. Mets lead, 2-1 Joe Baker doubles to start the Cubs 4th, and eventually scores on a SF by Mather. 2-2 To start the 5th, Reed Johnson (again) beats out a dribbler in the 1B hole. Johan covers on the play. Johnson spikes him. If Johan comes out, his career continues and he might even make the Hall of Fame one day. But…Johan stays in, gives up a single to Darwin Barney and then a 3-run blast to Anthony Rizzo. Johan strikes out Alfonso Soriano, but then Baker homers, and then Johan gives up consecutive singles to Geovany Soto, Mather, and Luis Valbuena, chasing him, and effectively ending his career. Cubs lead, 7-2. (The Mets tried to rally in the 9th, down 8-4. Valdespin hit a 1-out HR, and then Carlos Marmol walked Tejada, Daniel Murphy [pinch-hitting] and David Wright to load the bases for PH Ike Davis. Ike hit a two-run single to bring the Mets to 8-7 and then Lucas Duda lined one…right back to Marmol, who doubled Ike off of 1B to end the game.) Full Game (GKR) \| Career-ending ankle-stomping AB starts here. And that was basically that. Johan took 10 days off (helped by the All-Star break), but it wasn't enough. The spiking wrecked his stride, which wrecked his delivery, which eventually wrecked his arm. Johan made four more starts, got wrecked every single time, and never made it back to the bigs, again. So it's darkly hilarious that Gary faults Terry Collins for letting Johan throw those 134 pitches when he was literally unhittable, when the real issue was Terry leaving an injured Johan in when he was already struggling against the Cubs and then rushing him back 10 days later. But of course, we were in a pennant race! At 45-39 through that Cubs game, the Mets were in 2nd place, a mere 4.5 GB behind the Gnats. And look at those Wild-Card standings! SF 46-38 CIN 45-38 NY 45-39** ATL 44-39 STL 44-30 Clearly, this was no time to be over-cautious Nervous Nellies! We needed Johan! RA Dickey and his missing tendon can't do it alone! Fight!! But what actually happened was that the Mets went 29-49 from here on, crashing out to a 74-88 final mark and being grateful for the Fish going 69-93 to keep us from the cellar. And so yes, short-term thinking cost us long-term Johan…but that mistake was in July, not in June. 13 years overdue, but the whole thing is still a trigger for me, even though I didn't see it live. (No DirecTV that season.) Last edited by Amazin69; 03-26-2025 at 06:15 PM.