Santana Struggles as Braves Blow Away Mets

The Atlanta Braves finally beat the New York Mets, taking advantage of shaky defense to hand Johan Santana the shortest start of his career in a 9-3 victory Tuesday night.

Tyler Pastornicky's two-run double highlighted a five-run second that finished off Santana. Randall Delgado (2-0) won it for the Braves, who lost their first four games against the Mets this season.

Two costly errors -- Jason Bay dropped a fly ball, Ike Davis made a wild throw -- led to a pair of unearned runs against Santana (0-2), who allowed just one run in his first two games.

He was lifted after 1 1-3 innings, finished off by Jason Heyward's run-scoring single that made it 6-0. Santana had never gone less than three innings in his previous 265 starts.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)