Johan Santana

The Mets were in dire need of a win today. The Braves threatened to sweep them, and increase their lead to six games over the Mets heading into the All-Star Break.

The Mets, especially Johan Santana, made sure that didn't happen. Santana tossed seven shutout innings against the Braves, and the Mets actually scored some runs for him. It was a great game all-around, and it's a good note going into the All-Star Break. 

Baseball is mathematically past the halfway mark already, but many teams don't see the first half as history.  Many teams still have many big games in the first half. 

There are 162 baseball games in baseball's regular season, so 81 games is the mathematical halfway point in the season.  Even though that is true, many people look at the All-Star Break as the ending of the first half.

This article was written by Double G Sports contributing writer Marc A. Spallino.

With the Mets trailing the Atlanta Braves by only three games in the National League East , the Mets faithful are feeling cautiously excited.

Hopefully, after tonight, Johan Santana likes the National League a little bit more. While he has not found nearly as much success in the NL as he had in the AL with the Minnesota Twins, Johan tonight realized that the easiest way to win is to do it all yourself.

Santana provided the hitting and the pitching, en route to a Mets 3-0 win over the Reds.

NEW YORK—With five games left before the All-Star break, the Mets are trying to not let what was a surprisingly good first half turn into a disappointing finish.

After going on an amazing 21-7 stretch from May 22 through June 23, the Mets have played sub-.500 baseball over their last 11 games, going 5-6.

This particular type of talk in the Mets fan base has seemed to die down a bit, but there was a period of time within the last few weeks that the gradual deterioration of Johan Santana's stuff was fairly noticeable. It seemed Mets fans were pouncing on him from every direction just to put him down.

The point is, even now that he's gotten things back together a bit, what you see is what you get with an aging pitcher coming off of surgery. It is concerning that Mets fans have been getting on his case so much.

The New York Mets have been superb in June. They have become a bona fide contender in the National League East, and have solidified their position as a buyer rather than a seller before this season's trade deadline.

There have been a tremendous amount of positives which have come hand-in-hand with their overall success.

Yet, in the middle of all of those positives, there has been one surprising—and alarming—dark spot for the Mets: Johan Santana.

NEW YORK-- He spent eight seasons as a member of the Minnesota Twins. Now, three years later, Johan Santana faces his old club for the first time ever.

Santana was quite a dominant pitcher in Minnesota. He came up in 2000 and became a full-time starter in 2004, when he won 20 games and his first of two Cy Young Awards.

He was just unbelievable. He had one of the nastiest changeups the game had seen in over 50 years, and he was as big a strikeout pitcher as there was at the time.

The New York Mets' Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey told the New York Daily News on Tuesday that they would in so many words welcome Seattle pitcher Cliff Lee with open arms.

For the third time this season, Johan Santana served up a home run with the bases full, as C.C. Sabathia and the Yankees took the rubber game of a three-game set in the Bronx.

Santana had only surrendered two grand slams in his career entering the 2010 campaign, but Mark Teixeira did what Josh Willingham and Shane Victorino did earlier this year in helping the Yankees to a 4-0 victory.