I missed Johan Santana’s meltdown last night. I saw the David Wright and Rod Barajas home runs, and I watched the last five boring innings, after the game had already been decided. But the big blows — the unconscionable walk to Jamie Moyer with the bases loaded and the Shane Victorino — came while my friends and I were traveling from our hotel to an Atlanta bar to watch the rest of the game. And obviously I have no access to DVR or anything.

So I can’t answer for sure what happened to Johan Santana last night, as everyone seems to be asking this morning. He said he couldn’t command his fastball, and that seems a reasonable explanation. It happens.

His 2010 season lines, including last night’s brutal start, reflect some alarming trends: steadily increasing H/9 and BB/9 with a steadily declining K/9. Of course, that’s all in a very small sample, and Santana’s likely still building up strength off elbow surgery.

What I hope, though, — and the reason I’m writing this from a rainy Interstate between Atlanta and Birmingham — is that this one performance doesn’t give any Mets fan with a short memory enough fodder to wrongfully deem Santana “unclutch.”

It’s one game, for one thing. One regular season game. And yeah, it’s a rubber match of a series with the division rival when the Mets are playing well, but despite all the hype around it, one game just really doesn’t mean all that much. It doesn’t matter who’s in first place by a half game on May 3.

I’ve seen people write in various spots already that a performance like Santana’s last night simply is “not something an ace does.” My response? Apparently it is.

Because Santana is awesome, in all situations. Until we have more evidence that he’s anything but that, we must assume he still is. In the biggest game the Mets have ever asked Santana to pitch, he gave them a shutout on three days’ rest with a torn meniscus in his knee. One crappy start in early May shouldn’t make anyone forget about that, unless you think guys who are clutch can magically go unclutch.

He had a terrible start. It happens. It happened to happen at a bad time. Given how well Santana was pitching coming into the game, and given the fact that he’s Johan Santana, it’d be smart to wait until it happens again before deeming him anything but an ace.

The day Ike Davis came up, Jerry Manuel lauded his “easy power.” I liked that.

I don’t know if it matters a ton whether a guy’s power appears easy or hard-fought. Gary Sheffield’s power never looked like it came easy. Dude swung the hell out of the bat, but he sure made it work for him. And I remember watching Mark Johnson take batting practice, and seeing him park ball after ball into Shea Stadium’s mezzanine without looking like it took much work at all. But he only hit 38 Major League home runs in his career.

S0 for all I know it doesn’t make the tiniest bit of difference, in terms of ultimate results, how much apparent exertion goes into hitting a home run.

All I can say for certain is that when Wilmer Flores drove an 0-1 fastball at his knees about 350 feet and over the left field fence here in Savannah on Thursday night, it looked entirely effortless. Almost nonchalant. That such a skinny kid with such a smooth swing could drive a ball so far almost seemed an optical illusion, yet there was no doubt the ball would exit the yard as soon as he struck it. Easy power.

Flores swung at the first pitch he saw in his next at bat and lifted a lazy fly ball to center. He struck out on a wild pitch in the dirt in his third at-bat, and grounded out weakly on the first pitch he saw in his final at-bat.

He swings a lot. It’s hard to blame him, really, since swinging the bat has been such a massively rewarding activity for him so far this season. He was hitting .352 entering tonight’s game, with a .394 on-base percentage and a .580 slugging.

And he’s 18 years old. Who could fault a teenager for jumping at any sign of a fastball, knowing what he’s capable of doing to them?

I met Flores today. He told me he’s working on his defensive footwork, which he feels is his biggest weakness. He said the difference between how he hit last year and how he’s hitting this year is experience, and growing comfortable with the level. And he said the team’s long bus rides are tough, but worth it for the opportunity to improve as a baseball player.

Twice, actually. Due to some technical difficulties I failed to successfully record the audio of my first interview with Flores, but Flores happily repeated the entire conversation. Nice kid. Funny kid.

And kid, for sure. It feels like we’ve been hearing about Flores for so long that from afar it’s hard to believe he’s still so young, even if his youth is a huge part of what has made him so notable. But watch him take infield before a game or stand close to him and there’s no doubt. Knobby knees, gawky limbs, sparse hairs on his chin. He carries himself with confidence and his coaches rave about his makeup, but he looks his age.

Until he connects with one, of course.

In his first at-bat tonight, Flores worked a 3-1 count before smoking a line drive right at the Lexington shortstop. Not the greatest result, but a promising approach for certain. In his second plate appearance, he worked the count full, fouled a couple pitches off, then walked on a low fastball. Wilmer Flores is growing up.