Today, We Spell Redemption J-O-H-A-N Applesauce: Mets Defeat The Miami Marlins, Lose Bay And Pelfrey To Injuries

Meet the Mets

The Mets beat the Marlins 2-1 on Tuesday night. Jose Reyes made his long-awaited return to Citi Field for the first time as a Miami Marlin, but after the first out, it was Johan Santana who stole the show. For 6.2 innings, vintage Johan Santana was on the hill and he looked incredible, striking out 11 batters and allowing just a run on three hits. Of course, the game may have looked different if Kirk Nieuwenhuis hadn't robbed Reyes of a potential leadoff extra base hit with a slick catch, running into the left-center field fence. While Santana was in the midst of authoring a gem, Josh Johnson looked outstanding in his own right. The Marlins' ace tossed 6.2 innings of his own with 9 strikeouts, while allowing just a run. The Mets scored their first run with two outs in the seventh inning in strange fashion: four different Marlins pitchers each walked a batter, forcing the tying run in. A cheap run is still a run, right? In the eighth, Lucas Duda ricocheted a line drive off of reliever Edward Mujica to take the lead and Frank Francisco threw a scoreless ninth to frame the victory.

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In game two of this series, the Mets will send R.A. Dickey to the hill and he'll face off against former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle. The first pitch is at 7:10 PM and you can catch all of the action on SNY and WFAN 660.

Tuesday was certainly a roller coaster of a day for the Mets. The win was great news but prior to game time, they suffered a pair of losses. Jason Bay and Mike Pelfrey were both placed on the disabled list, further stretching the club's already thin depth chart. Bay suffered a non-displaced fracture of a rib on his left side while diving for a ball during game two on Monday evening and the injury could cost him some money. Meanwhile, Pelfrey began to feel tightness in his elbow on Saturday and an MRI showed that the big righty has swelling in there. While the team is searching for another opinion, the word is that there's a possibility that Pelfrey has a partially torn Ulnar Collateral Ligament and that diagnosis would mean Tommy John Surgery, ending Pelf's 2012 after just 3 starts. In their stead, the Mets promoted 3B Zach Lutz from Buffalo and LHP Robert Carson from Binghamton. In all likelihood, Carson will be with the big league team until Friday when they recall RHP Chris Schwinden to take Pelfrey's rotation spot.

In some good injury news, Andres Torres is likely to rejoin the team on Sunday evening, prior to the start of their series in Houston. Torres went 0-4 in his second rehab game with St. Lucie but he did play the whole game in CF. The plan is to send him up to Buffalo to play in the cold this weekend before he is activated.

The return of Jose Reyes was hyped up quite a bit in the media and the reaction he received was interesting, if not all that surprising. Reyes received a mixed reaction from the fans, though the boos seemed to ring out a bit more than the cheers.

Did you know that while growing up, Ruben Tejada's idol was Derek Jeter? You can learn more about Tejada's baseball upbringing in this piece by Jerry Krasnick. Apparently, the young Tejada is one with the WIN METHOD. The question is does 'he have an Edge'?

Chris Cwik of Fangraphs took a look at whether David Wright is worth the $100 million contract he's likely to receive at some point in the next year or so.

Zach Lutz's promotion to the big leagues means that he gets to join the fraternity of Division III alums in the big leagues.

Finally, AA's own Eno Sarris reviewed the beer list at Citi Field.

Around the NL East

Old man Chipper Jones celebrated his 40th birthday on Tuesday and even smacked a home run during the Braves' contest with the Dodgers on the west coast.

The Nats took on the Padres in San Diego yesterday. They received some bad news as Ryan Zimmerman was out of the lineup again with a sore shoulder and he underwent an MRI.

The Phillies and Diamondbacks played last night and Hunter Pence was back in the lineup for the Phils, while the team seems to be optimistic that Ryan Howard will be cleared for a return to baseball activities this week.

Around the Majors

Yu Darvish had his first dominant outing in the majors, tossing 8.1 shutout innings and only allowing 7 hits while striking out 10 in a 2-0 shutout over the Yankees. The Yankees, meanwhile, will send righty Michael Pineda to Dr. David Altchek for a second opinion on his injured pitching shoulder.

Interesting stuff from Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus, who took a look at Albert Pujols' low unintentional walk rates and his declining O-Swing percentage.

It's been quite a week for former Met Philip Humber. First, he pitches the 21st perfect game in ML history. Now, he's headed to the paternity list because his wife is ready to give birth to a child.

To update a story from yesterday's Applesauce, Dontrelle Willis is filing a grievance against the Orioles, saying that the team placed him on the restricted list and is preventing him from signing on with another organization.

Finally, I think this is a pretty interesting piece from Beyond the Box Score, taking a look at using Wins Above Average instead of the oft-used Wins Above Replacement as a barometer for the Hall of Fame.