And baseball has been even more unfair to batters facing Johan Santana. Because for the batter facing Johan Santana, somewhere in that sequence of windup and pitch, this batter has to notice that the car traveling ahead of him is, in fact, slamming on its brakes without any warning from the brake lights. He’s gotta see the Santana changeup, recognize a difference in arm speed, or the delivery, or something. When Santana’s on, it’s impossible because there isn’t any difference. Those panic swings and bats flying into the stands on Santana changeups are the brakes being slammed and steering wheels being pulled towards the shoulder just a little too late. And those smoother, way-out-in-front whiffs on Santana’s changeups, that deceptive grace is really the mark of the badly, badly fooled – those hitters rammed full speed into the car in front of them, never noticing that anything had slowed down.

– Patrick Flood, PatrickFloodBlog.com.

Flood returns from Port St. Lucie with a couple thousand words, all of which are worth reading. That’s far more worthwhile than anything that’ll follow in this post, so click through, check it out then come on back.

As for other recent Mets stuff:

– The Mets are apparently finalizing a Minor League deal with Chris Young. Good. It’s no safe bet he’ll be healthy at all this season, but every team could use starting pitching depth and there’s very little risked in giving Young a Minor League deal. If he comes back in August and makes four starts, it’s a win for the Mets.

– David Wright is playing today. That’s excellent news, assuming he’s playing because he’s fully healthy and not because this is the latest he can possibly start playing games to get himself ready for Opening Day.

– Spring Training stats are still mostly meaningless.

– I’m going to the Mets’ “All-Star Dining Line-up” at Citi Field tonight to sample the various new food options being offered at Citi this season. It’s going to be a bloodbath.

– Chase Utley will miss the start of the season with chondromalacia in his knees and there’s no timetable for his return. In Utley’s absence, the Phillies will likely start Freddy Galvis, a 22-year-old with 121 at-bats above Double-A and a .613 career Minor League OPS (though to Galvis’ credit, he has been young for every level). Last week Ryan Howard started playing catch and taking grounders while seated on a stool. Without Howard and Utley, the Phillies’ lineup looks awfully mediocre. The pitching staff still looks phenomenal, though. And 1/5 of it looks like this.

This almost certainly won’t happen, but does anyone think the Phillies might trade something of some value for Justin Turner? Do the Mets have enough confidence in Daniel Murphy at second base to do something like that?

– The Mets now have five little yellow crosses signifying injuries on their MLBDepthCharts page. The Braves have four, the Marlins have two, the Phillies have five and the Nationals have six.