Bob Nightengale on Santana, Twins on XM

Bob Nightengale with Charley Steiner on XM says he still thinks Santana is the best pitcher in baseball, but that the Twins have "babied" him. He's rarely thrown over 105 pitches, if you try and use him more he might break down. ***************************************************

• Here's an example how having Santana in the post season with his limited pitch count lead the Twins to a loss in a season ending game:

• Game 4, 2004 ALDS (10/9/04) Yanks v Twins, Santana left after 5 innings to a cheering crowd, Twins leading 5-1.

• The Yankees won the game in 11 innings, 6-5. The winning pitcher was Mariano Rivera (pitched 2 scoreless extra innings, came in when game was tied--in Minnesota).

October 9, 2004 at Metrodome (Minnesota Twins)

                             1  2  3    4  5  6    7  8  9   10 11     R  H  E
                             -  -  -    -  -  -    -  -  -    -  -     -  -  -
New York Yankees             0  0  1    0  0  0    0  4  0    0  1     6 11  0
Minnesota Twins              1  0  0    1  3  0    0  0  0    0  0     5 12  1

PITCHERS: NYY - Vazquez, Loaiza (6), Gordon (8), Rivera (10)
          MIN - Santana, Balfour (6), Rincon (8), Nathan (8), Lohse (10)

           WP - Mariano Rivera
     LP - Kyle Lohse
         SAVE - none

HOME RUNS: NYY - Sierra
          MIN - Blanco

ATTENDANCE: 52,498


Baseball-Reference

• On current state of the Twins, Nightengale notes:

• Every team was just given $30 million in revenues from MLB.com, including the Twins.

• The Twins recently received $20 million in revenue sharing.

• Carl Pohlad, worth $2 billion, "makes George Steinbrenner
  

• look like a pauper."

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon