Met's Santana Knocked Out Early in Loss to Braves ATLANTA - The delicately optimistic tale of Johan Santana's return acquired its first real stain of the year. Till now, Santana's every move this season, pored over by coaches, reporters and fans, had elicited only smiles, however guarded, and praise, albeit cautious. But on Tuesday night came the first slumped shoulders and long stares. Santana, who missed all of last season after having shoulder surgery in 2010, recorded the shortest outing of his long career. He managed just four outs before being dismissed from the mound. The shaky start from their ace put the Mets in a hole from which they could not emerge, and they lost to the Atlanta Braves, 9-3, at Turner Field. The loss was the first for the Mets (7-4) this year against the Braves, whom they had beaten four times. "That's not him," Manager Terry Collins said of Santana. It's probably something he's never experienced before. Some perspective will be required when evaluating Santana's first bad outing of the year, and to be sure, the Mets would probably trade a considerable number of similarly rough starts from him for a guarantee of his continued health. From a physical standpoint, Santana's progress, apart from some soreness here and there, has been made mostly without a hitch. He made every one of his spring training starts and looked even more effective once the season began. He pitched five innings in each of his first two starts and allowed just seven hits and one earned run in those 10 innings. But things turned sour for Santana on Tuesday, his third start since having surgery in September 2010, and it happened from the get-go. Michael Bourn, the Braves" leadoff batter, hit a long fly ball to left field that Jason Bay tracked over one shoulder before turning awkwardly to try to catch over the other. He ended up dropping the ball for a two-base error, and Bourn went on to score on Chipper Jones's sacrifice fly. "That didn't help," Collins said of the error, one of two the Mets made. But the great ones, and Johan certainly fits that category, most of the time they pitch through that. But Santana did not, and after falling behind in the first, he fell apart in the second. He allowed a walk and a single to open the inning, then lost an 11-pitch battle against Freddie Freeman, the Braves" first baseman, who punched a run-scoring double down the left-field line. The 22-year-old Freeman's effort earned a standing ovation from the crowd of 18,732. "The way they battled, fouling off a lot of pitches, it was really tough," Santana said. They just made me work. Tyler Pastornicky followed Freeman with a double of his own, this one down the right-field line, which drove in two more runs. And Pastornicky went on to score when Ike Davis fielded Braves starter Randall Delgado's bunt near the mound but misfired on his attempt to get him at third. Santana finally got his first out of the inning when Bourn grounded to second. But Jason Heyward came up next and knocked a run-scoring single through the left side of the infield, making it 6-0 and ending Santana's night. Collins said he was hoping Santana would work out of the trouble, but then did not want to risk hurting his shoulder by making him throw more pitches. "It was a good thing, I guess," Santana said of Collins's decision to pull him after 55 pitches. I wanted to stay in the game. But at the same time, I know the plan from the beginning of the season was to make sure everything is fine and not go too crazy. The final line for Santana, who said he felt fine afterward, became his first real blight of the year: six runs, four earned, in an inning and a third. Before Tuesday, Santana's shortest outing had been three innings, which happened three times, the last at Yankee Stadium on June 14, 2009. The Mets, who have yet to score this year with Santana on the mound, scored two runs in the fourth with a double and three consecutive singles. Daniel Murphy's run-scoring single gave them another run in the sixth. But by then, the Braves had padded their lead with two runs in the fifth, and Juan Francisco added a solo home run to cap the win. Terry Collins said Tuesday that he was looking forward to the return of center fielder Andres Torres, who began outfield drills this week while rehabilitating his strained left calf muscle in Port St. Lucie, Fla. But he stopped short of guaranteeing him his old starting job.