Johan Santana Shutdown in Venezuela

Your Johan Santana hopes might have to be put on a shelf. Not because the Minnesota Twins aren’t interested in the former Cy Young winner, but because Santana is once again on the bad side of injuries. Santana has been shut down in his Venezuelan league.

From Hardball Talk via a report from Venezuela, Santana has been shut down for the rest of the playoffs due to shoulder soreness. This is all after Santana healed from an Achilles injury that shut him down before the Major League season a year ago.

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Santana underwent an MRI which showed no structural damage, but Santana reportedly has been struggling to recover after games. A pitcher does need to be able to pitch at least every fifth day and Santana can’t even do that at the moment.

It’s a sad, sad story for Santana. Injuries have dominated the later years of his career, while not really reaching the spotlight too early in his career either. Santana last pitched in the MLB in 2012 and it’s starting to look like that will be the last time Santana puts on an MLB uniform.

It is hard to say that Johan Santana might be done, but I think it’s come to the point where we can say that any productivity at any level of baseball would be impressive.