This Opening Day left us little to complain about. Production from the bottom of the order? Against a left-handed starter no less? Check. Johan Santana looking dominant? Check. David Wright and Jose Reyes looking like their old selves? Check. Keith Hernandez discussing food during the broadcast? Check. (At least I think I heard him discussing food—I was watching from a sports bar at Foxwoods and may not have got it right.)

It might be a different story when the Mets face a real lefty on Wednesday in young phenom Andrew Miller (and we all know how the Mets usually do against rookie pitchers), and we’ll see what happens when the Mets face a bit tougher lineup with something less than their ace on the hill, but for now all is grand.

Well, not all is grand. Carlos Delgado didn’t exactly leave me brimming with confidence after watching his at-bats today, and it was kind of sad that we needed three pitchers to get through the eighth inning, but most everything is grand. In fact, I would go so far as to say that merely seeing Santana take the mound has put all our collective fears to rest. We have a legitimate team again. The guys who were out there today looked far more professional than the guys who were out there at the end of last September. Of course, we looked pretty damn professional during the opening series against the Cardinals last year, too.

The beauty of the game is that we don’t what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone the rest of the season. It almost doesn’t matter that the Mets looked great in the opener. It matters far more that the Mets are finally playing games that count. Welcome back baseball! Too bad there are only 161 of these left.