Friday, June 25th 2010, 11:27 AM

Simmons/News

The saga surrounding Johan Santana, brushed aside by Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen (b.) Wednesday night, has the ability to derail the team's current hot streak.

Sabo/News

The background laughter Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez provided for Jerry Seinfeld on Wednesday night was now off the track, derailed by humorless reality.

It was in the ninth inning when Cohen injected the Johan Santana situation into SNY's Tigers-Mets telecast. The play-by-play man reported that a sexual-assault complaint, lodged against the pitcher in October of 2009, had surfaced. In January, the sheriff's office in Lee County, Fla., confirmed that prosecution was denied because there was not sufficient evidence to prove lack of consent.

"Then the case is closed," Hernandez said. "It's yesterday's news and on with it. I don't think it's going to affect this ballclub or that gentleman (SNY's camera was on Santana) there."

Yep, ya still gotta believe - in wishful thinking.

Despite the flow of spoken-like-a-Mets-fan drivel, proclaiming this Santana thing will go away, no one knows where the story is headed. And no one can accurately predict how much of a distraction it will be to Santana and his teammates.

There is only one certainty: The story ain't going away.

"It is going to have some legs," an MLB team executive said Thursday. "Fairly or not, it puts a lens on someone who was previously looked at as a guy with a pristine image, a guy who could do no wrong."

Santana's image took on more rust Thursday when a sealed portion of the police report was released. In it, Santana, married and the father of three children, admitted under oath to a sheriff's investigator he had consensual sex with the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, "in the open field alongside the golf cart path." The woman had a different story, saying Santana forced himself on her.

The report contained other graphic descriptions not suitable for display on the Citi Field scoreboard. That space is now reserved for reporting the scores of Mets victories. The team is on a roll.

Nonetheless, some of Santana's pitching performances (velocity down, blah, blah, blah) have been subject to question. Now every time a Santana performance is deemed subpar, there will be a new set of inquiries. Are continuing media reports of this seamy sexual encounter interfering with his brain waves? Is dealing with his family taking his focus away? Johan, how long has all this stuff been on your mind?

And what happens when Jane Doe goes public, in front of microphones and cameras?

The initial reaction to this mysteriously delayed report, which was broken by TMZ on Wednesday, was strange. If the name on the complaint was "Alex Rodriguez" instead of "Johan Santana," would there have been a real sense of urgency across the media board?

Some outlets, such as ESPN-1050, followed the Hernandez Doctrine, treating the story like "yesterday's news" by ignoring it for much of Wednesday afternoon. Instead the station opted to pound its listeners with Bonnie Bernstein updates featuring news of Team USA's dramatic 1-0 World Cup win over Algeria, the Wimbledon marathon match and Lawrence Taylor being indicted on sexual assault charges.

The oversight was not without irony.

"This is the place for all breaking (sports) news," Michael Kay, ESPN-1050's afternoon mouth proclaimed Wednesday. "We have all the vast resources of ESPN."

If that's supposed to be some big deal, if Kay's statement was the undisputed truth, then why was there no mention of the Santana story during the 4:20 p.m., 4:40 p.m. and 5:40 p.m. updates? It wasn't until 6p.m. that the story got any play on Bernstein's reports. Down the dial, on WFAN, the Santana thing had been primed and extensively updated the entire afternoon by America's UpDork, John Minko.

Working a remote from some golf course, Mike (Sports Pope) Francesa was on edge, waiting for Santana's response to the report. After finally airing it, Francesa was not pleased with the quality of the audio feed.

"What did we send that (transmission) with, two tin cups and a clamp?" Francesa asked. "What kind of quality was that?"

Good questions. Fortunately Francesa's own transmission - the way he handled this Santana report - was crystal clear. Spoken like a mouth with experience.

"You have to watch carefully how this thing is going to play out," said Francesa, pointing out that the story could take on a life of its own.

This is a talkie who has been around for all those Mets days of whine and bleach, rape allegations and drugs. Those stories did not end in happy recaps.

Now, as long as the Mets - and Santana - keep on winning, fans won't care how this seamy tale plays out. They'll still flock to Citi Field to see him pitch. But will fathers keep purchasing Santana jerseys for the kiddies? Will companies, after reading the details of the report, want Santana to endorse their products?

Currently, in the eyes of the law, Santana has done no wrong. In the eyes of those who believe in fidelity he has. Will Santana, the man with the golden arm, suddenly stumble over losing his golden reputation?