Mets ace Johan Santana, in his first regular-season appearance since September 2, 2010, held the Braves scoreless for 5.0 innings on opening day.
In those five frames, he struck out five, walked two and gave up just a pair of hits. Santana logged 84 pitches on the day, and here, courtesy of Brooks Baseball, is how those 84 pitches break down:
The velocity on his four-seamer on Wednesday was about 2.0 mph lower than his average four-seam velocity from back in 2010, but there was a 10-mph-ish gap between his fastball and changeup, which is right in line with his career norms. So that's encouraging, particulary for a pitcher like Santana, whose changeup functions as his out pitch.
As well, it's worth noting that Santana's opening-day game score of 66 ("game score" is a Bill James stat that gauges the dominance -- or lack thereof -- of a given pitcher's start) is higher than his average game score from each of his two Cy Young seasons. In other words, Santana had a very good day.
It's one start, but it's also an encouraging sign.
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