Red-Hot Santana Powers Tribe

Dating back to June 1, Santana is batting .281 with a .398 on-base percentage and nine home runs – stats which are well above his career averages and more than worthy of the four-hole in the Tribe lineup.

Santana’s performance overshadowed Danny Salazar‘s return to the big leagues – and that’s probably a good thing.

Salazar wasn’t awful, allowing just one run, but he walked three and allowed nine baserunners while failing to get out of the sixth inning. It was certainly an acceptable fill-in start, but not the type of performance to put him back in the conversation to remain a part of this rotation.

On the positive side, Salazar picked up the win and thanks to Santana’s big night, no one really noticed his somewhat shaky performance against the weak-hitting Twins. If nothing else, hopefully it gives Salazar a confidence boost in case he’s needed for another spot start down the stretch.

Other notes and thoughts…

• Santana finished a triple shy of the cycle, and no, that’s not noteworthy (despite Rick Manning‘s obsession with it during the broadcast). It’s the sixth time this season an Indians player has come a triple shy of the cycle and the 118th time in the majors (an average of more than once per day).
• Santana now has eight career home runs at Target Field. Among visiting players, only Jose Bautista and David Ortiz have more.
• Kyle Crockett pitched a scoreless sixth inning, stranding a leadoff runner left behind by Salazar. It was his eighth straight scoreless outing.
• The Indians picked up a win in their 100th game of the season for just the 7th time the last 25 years – one of the most bizarre and fluky stats I’ve seen in awhile.
• Brian Dozier hit his fifth career home run against the Indians, the most all-time by a Twins second baseman. The record was previously held by Johnny Goryl, who has been a member of the Indians organization for over 30 years in a variety of capacities, including third base coach in the 1980s and bench coach during the 1997 World Series.
• Francisco Lindor, who was promoted to Columbus on Monday night, went 1-5 with two strikeouts against the Louisville Bats in his Triple-A debut.