After today’s loss to the Brewers Johan Santana and Willie Randolph met with media. Here are some excerpts. To hear each press conference go to WFAN.com.

First Santana:
Santana’s overall opinion on the game:

“I felt good, tried to establish my fastball early in the game. Made a couple of mistakes and they hit them out of the park. They have a lot of strong guys over there.”

On the bunt play in which Brewer C. Hart scored:

“On that play, once he put the ball down I was told to throw to first base and that’s what I did. I got the runner behind me, I didn’t see him.”

On his first start at Shea:

“I was excited. Unfortunately it didn’t go the way a lot of people wanted it to. But I felt good, you’ve got to give credit to the other guy (Brewers pitcher Ben Sheets) he did a good job. He pitched real well and I didn’t.”

On hearing some Boos while exiting the game:

“If they boo, that’s fine. That’s the history they have from not being so good, I guess. I’ve seen it before, it’s not the first time I’ve seen that happen to a home player. We are not perfect. We are gonna make mistakes sometimes. It’s just how you react to it and how you bounce back. I know a lot of people are expecting a lot from me and I am trying to exceed all those expectations. If the fans feel that way, they can feel the way they want. We are trying to do our job here and please a lot of people, but we are not perfect.”

Note: Peter Botte of The Daily News wrote “I didn’t view that as a rip on the fans, more a matter-of-fact observation about what went on here at the end of last year, etc”.

Listening to the Santana press conference I have to agree with Mr. Botte. There wasn’t any “attitude” in Santana’s comments towards the fans.

Willie on Santana:

“I thought he threw well. The defense made him work harder. I don’t like to see the homeruns but he’s gonna come after you, pound the zone. He’s gonna challenge you. Hope the homerun’s don’t happen too much though (slight smile).”

On Brewers Pitcher Ben Sheets:

“He didn’t give us many opportunity’s. He set down something like 18 in a row, he was on top of his game.”

Overall:

“This is what happens when you don’t catch the ball. Overall defense was key today and we weren’t very good.”

I personally hated to hear, what sounded like just a few boos. But that was still too many for me. The fact that there were enough boos for it to be brought up to Santana in the press conference was too bad. I know, I know, people pay their money and they have the right. But I just think it’s so counter productive. We are suppose to ROOT for the home team. No matter what the players say, it gets to them and if we can help, even for purely selfish reasons we as fans should do so. But that’s just my opinion and you already know what they say about those.