Minnesota Twins: The Dominance of Ervin Santana Might Be Over
By Jordan Ison
After an incredible start to the 2017 season, Minnesota Twins’ ace Ervin Santana may be seeing his hot streak disappear into thin air.
The Minnesota Twins ended their series against the Boston Red Sox on Sunday on a bad note. With Ervin Santana on the hill, hopes were high for the home team. After a 3-run first inning for the visiting Red Sox, though, it seemed as if Santana’s magic was going, going, gone.
Through the first month of the season, Ervin Santana had been nothing less than phenomenal. It seemed like every time he took to the hill, a goose egg was left on the scoreboard. He gave the Twins something they had been longing for since well over two years ago…hope.
As with almost everything Twins-related, that hope was very quickly washed away. The Red Sox made Santana look like an average pitcher on Sunday afternoon, something he hadn’t looked like during his first 6 starts.
The Boston Red Sox are a solid hitting team, there is no doubting that. Ervin Santana saw that very quickly.
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In the first inning, Santana gave up a solo home-run to Dustin Pedroia and a 2 run shot to Andrew Benintendi. Very quickly, the Minnesota Twins were facing a 3-0 deficit.
In the fifth inning, Mookie Betts went yard on Santana, giving the Red Sox a 4-0 lead. The Twins then tied up the game on a 4-run 5th inning.
Fast forward to the sixth inning, Santana gives up yet another home-run. This one was a 2-run shot to Sandy Leon, ending Santana’s night early after just 6 innings.
We don’t need to discuss the rest of Sunday’s game, as it was about as ugly as it gets. The main point here is, for the first time this season, we saw some serious struggles by Ervin Santana.
Furthermore, he pitched 6 innings, gave up 5 hits, 6 earned runs and 4 home-runs. The man that seemed so invincible in April seemed very human on Sunday afternoon, and I’m afraid we may see more of that to come.
The Minnesota Twins desperately need Santana to be a great pitcher this year as, obviously, the rest of their pitching staff has been in question. We knew his numbers would cool off eventually, we just didn’t know it would be this sudden and this harsh. It’ll be hard to get those numbers back up for Santana.