Johan Santana won again, improving his record to 8-3 on the season. His trend of merely decent pitching continued, though, as he allowed five runs -- all coming on four homeruns -- and nine baserunners in seven innings. In his first seven starts this year, Santana allowed eight total runs in 46 innings, or 1.57 runs per nine innings. Over his last five starts -- spanning 23 innings -- he has allowed 20 runs, or 7.83 runs per nine innings. We all got so accustomed to the dominant Santana of the season's first six weeks that it's something quite shocking to see him at his most pedestrian.

This isn't simply a case of a great pitcher dropping off from "otherwordly" to "just phenomenal", because Santana has been nothing like phenomenal since the middle of May. He's been rather average, actually, and while I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's discouraging, it surely isn't encouraging, especially considering how frustratingly unreliable the rest of the starting rotation has been. Can the Mets prosper without Santana at his best? Sure, but they're going to need to get a helluva lot more out of the rest of these stiffs.

• Santana threw first-pitch strikes to 25 of 29 batters he faced.
• Francisco Rodriguez threw first-pitch strikes to just one of the four batters he faced.
• Homeruns from David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Ryan Church: all good signs.
• Luis Castillo saw 27 pitches but went 0-for-5 and was the biggest detriment to the Mets tonight, at least in terms of WPA.
• Home plate umpire Lance Barksdale needs to have his tenure reevaluated after botching an easy safe call at home plate in the bottom of the sixth. Fernando Tatis -- perhaps unwisely, considering there were no outs -- broke for home on a Ryan Church grounder to first. Ryan Howard bounced the ball to catcher Carlos Ruiz, who was very clearly still juggling the ball eight-to-ten inches above Tatis's sliding foot. The tag was not applied; Tatis was safe. For his part, Barksdale had a perfect view of the play, so I commend him for being in the proper position. However, he still made the wrong call on a play that I could very clearly see even without the benefit of replay. The Mets won anyway, but that's just a first class screw job from someone who is supposed to be among the best in the business.
• Omir Santos stranded five runners in his first two at-bats before singling and scoring in his third. The OPS is down to .713; OBP holding steady at .286.

Swag Contest

Swag contest results can be found here and the next game's swag form already available. You can read more about the swag contest here.

SB Nation Coverage

* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* The Good Phight Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Pedro Feliciano, +21.0% WPA, Johan Santana (batter), +17.6% WPA
Big losers: Luis Castillo, -18.4% WPA, Johan Santana (pitcher), -17.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Santana RBI double in sixth, +23.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Rollins two-run homerun in sixth, -31.3% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +11.8% WPA
Total batter WPA: +38.2% WPA
GWRBI!: Ryan Church

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by JADDENHOPKINS; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.