MVN - Most Valuable Network

Hamels and Santana set for duel

Set the DVRs, Tivos, VCRs, or whatever you’ve got. This could be interesting. Since the Mets unofficially acquired Johan Santana on January 29^th, Phillies fans everywhere anxiously awaited their first chance to see the two-time A.L. Cy Young winner and three-time All-Star. Well, tonight’s the night. And let’s not forget the fact that there’s a guy named Cole Hamels, pitching too.

The Mets are in town for the first time in 2008, and they’re bringing the whole cast of characters. Wright, Beltran, Reyes, and Wagner are all there. But undoubtedly the new sheriff in town is Santana, the venerable 29 year old who’s heading right into the prime of his career.

He was signed by the Houston Astros in 1995 as a sixteen year old. He was drafted by the Florida Marlins in the 1999 Rule V Draft, and then traded to the Minnesota Twins that same day for Jared Camp, a player who will always be known as “the guy that was traded for Johan Santana.”

The numbers for Santana were stifling with the Twins. He won 93 games and lost just 44 with an offense that helped him so little at times. He pitched 200+ innings four times, posted WHIPs under one in three of those seasons, and dominated batters with his pinpoint fastball and deathly change-up. So far this season, Santana is 1-2 with a 3.05 ERA. He’s getting just 3.67 runs per game worth of support so far, but it’s not bound to stay that way. The Mets have a potent enough offense to give Santana the chance to win 20 games.

With all the talk about Santana, there should be an equal amount of talk from a certain Cy Young candidate in Hamels. All Cole’s managed to do so far is post a .82 ERA while allowing just 11 hits in his 22 innings pitched so far. The lanky lefty from San Diego is 1-1 lifetime against the Mets with a 2.77 ERA, striking out 26 New Yorkers in 26 innings.

It’s no coincidence that Hamels and Santana both use the same out pitch. Hamels’ changeup has become nearly unhittable, and his curveball is slowly improving to a respectable level.

Sometimes the hype is never reached. Sometimes the big matchups turn out to be much ado about nothing. Tonight, Hamels and Santana look to change that. So kick back, this is going to be good.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.