In Wednesday’s 7-2 defeat of the Washington Nationals, The Mets’ Johan Santana finally looked like himself — minus the gopher balls that have plagued him since ’07 — and got some run support to boot. Ryan Church (2 for 5, 1 run, 2 RBI’s) continued to make a case for himself as the club’s most pleasant surprise of the young season (with all due respect to Angel Pagan), while Duaner Sanchez and Billy Wagner each kept their ERA’s at zero with scoreless eighth and ninth innings respectively (a hold for Sanchez, a 5th save for Country Time). So of course, after the Mets ended a 3 game skid, Newsday’s Wally Matthews would choose to pick on Jose Reyes, asking the shortstop (seriously) “How would you like to be remembered, as another Derek Jeter? Or another Rey Ordonez?”

I’m glad you’re having fun again, with your celebrations and your dugout dance routines. But for thousands of Mets fans throughout the city, the only fun is seeing this team win and seeing you play well.

The two go hand-in-hand, like one of your silly handshakes.

You, Jose Reyes, are not doing your job, which is to create runs at the top of the batting order and .prevent runs on the field. You can’t do the first if your body isn’t on base and you can’t do the second if your head isn’t in the game.

The other day in Chicago, your decision to throw home on what should have been an inning-ending double-play ball led directly to the grand slam that blew the game open. What exactly were you thinking?

You can blame Jorge Sosa if you like. But had you made the right play, he never would have been in the position to throw that pitch. And you might have come up in the ninth with a chance to do something meaningful. Instead, you grounded out to end a game that was already out of reach.

You can shrug the blame off on the manager or the GM or the bullpen or the first baseman or the centerfielder, and on any given day, any one of them can be measured for the clown suit.

But day in and day out, it is you that makes this engine go — or stall in the mud. When it comes down to it, the long-term success of this ballclub depends on you and David Wright, the axis around which all Mets teams for the next 15 years are supposed to be built.

Wright not only has .delivered on his promise, but exceeded it. But on too many days, we wonder if you will ever keep yours.

This week’s reports of Rupert Murdoch buying Newsday and cutting costs across the Long Island paper and the Post bring to mind all sorts of tantalizing options. Aside from Neil Best and Phil Mushinick having to share a television set, I’m intrigued by what might happen if Matthews’ brain is placed inside Mike Vaccaro’s body. I realize there’s a good chance neither scribe would survive such a procedure, but I am totally willing to take that chance if it would increase Newscorp’s profits and advance the cause of science.