It hasn’t been a tragedy or anything, but one of the more, well, troubling things these past couple of years has been seeing Johan Santana transform from “otherworldly” to merely good. It’s premature to say he won’t win another Cy Young at some point or something, but he simply hasn’t been the same pitcher he used to be since coming to New York. In light of this, last night was a satisfying blast from the past, as Santana dominated the Reds.
Santana threw a three-hit shutout in the 3-0 win, striking out five. He wasn’t invincible — he walked three guys — but the Reds really never had a chance against him. He also hit a homer. Pfun Pfact, courtesy of Twitter friend @tweetthemets: Santana is the first pitcher to hit a homer and pitch a shoutout in
same game was Mike Hampton did it for the Braves back in 2005. Calm down. I just said it was pfun, not that it was predictive of future success.
Anyway, it was a nice night for Santana and a nice night for the rest of us for getting to see him return to form.
