Johan Has Come!

By David Jensen
This story is dedicated to the memory of Sam Hanson.

A small break in the endless dark cloud has come, allowing a ray of light to shine through. Johan Santana has arrived at his mid-season form. Though by no stretch of the imagination did he pitch poorly in his first eight starts, he wasn’t dominant enough to overcome his team’s poor offense at times. He went 4-3 with an ERA of 3.35 and 56 strike outs.

In his last two outings, he’s pitched 14 innings, given up 8 hits, 3 ER, 3 walks and struck out 24. All three runs came on solo home runs. He’s 1-1 in those starts after coming out on the short end of a 2-0 pitchers duel with Fausto Carmona. Keep an eye on him. This failed closer may be the thing that puts Cleveland over the top, if he can fool the AL the second time around.

In his four starts in May, Santana’s ERA is 2.16. He’s struck out 34 and allowed just 21 hits. But he’s only 2-2 for the month. Most shocking has been his vulnerability at home. After winning 17 straight decisions at the dome, he’s 1-3. That is partly due to poor run support. In those four starts, the Twins have scored 10 runs behind him, while he has amassed an ERA of 3.96.

Tuesday night against Texas, Santana made one of his best starts of the year. Going against a Ranger team that lit up the Twins for 14 runs the night before, he allowed one run on 4 hits and struck out 13 over seven innings. Twins pitchers combined to strike out 18, a Texas hitter’s record for a nine-inning game. All strike outs were swung-on.

Overall, he stands at 5-4 with an ERA of 3.05. He leads the AL with 80 strike outs and is sixth in innings pitched with 65.

No matter how the rest of the season goes, we still get to watch Johan befuddle AL hitters. That is unless the unthinkable happens. Keep knocking ‘em dead, Johan. And please hurry back Joe.

Side Notes

Need more evidence of Santana’s brilliance? Last night, he pitched five full innings for the 101^st consecutive start. In the last 50 years, only Bob Gibson, David Cone and Curt Schilling have had longer such streaks.

Luis Castillo has gone a Major League record 130 games at second base without committing an error. He passed Ryne Sandburg (123) last week but no one noticed. I learned of the record from the Rangers’ broadcasters. They said the Twins didn’t even realize it until days later.

Even with a few bad starts recently, Carlos Silva is still doing much better this year than at this point last year. In his first eight starts last season, he had allowed 18 home runs. After nine starts this year, he’s only given up four gopher balls.

Minnesota is no longer last in the AL in home runs. Justin Morneau’s three against Texas have pushed them in front of Baltimore. The Twins have 35 while the O’s are at 32. Morneau (14), Torii Hunter (11) and Michael Cuddyer (5) are the only Twins with more than one.