Despite rocky outings, Pirates see Santana’s potential

In a way, the July 6 outing of Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Dennis Santana summarized his identity through seven years as a big-league pitcher: promising but volatile.

During an eventual 5-2 loss to the New York Mets, Santana was summoned from the bullpen in the third inning after starter Bailey Falter unexpectedly left the game with an injury.

The situation Santana faced — bases loaded with nobody out — was unenviable.

To his credit, the 28-yearold promptly recorded backto- back strikeouts of slugger Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos, coming within one out of impressively extinguishing the fire.

But disaster struck, as New York’s Luis Torrens blasted a 1-0 pitch to the North Side Notch for a bases-clearing double.

All three runs were charged to Falter, and Santana went on to pitch a clean fourth inning, but the damage was done.

After the game, manager Derek Shelton cut Santana some slack, given the circumstances.

“He made one bad pitch in two innings,” Shelton said. “He got punch-out, punchout, in the middle of a really good order with two really good hitters and then he just left a slider flat. It’s hard to be perfect in that situation. You’re trying to escape with minimal damage.

“Kind of sucks. He made one bad pitch in two innings that ended up getting hit.”

Santana, a righty who has played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (2018-21), Texas Rangers (2021-22) and Mets (2023), was most recently a member of the New York Yankees earlier this year, making 23 appearances before being designated for assignment June 9. The Pirates swiftly picked him up despite a 6.26 ERA on the year, adding him to a bullpen plagued by injuries and populated in significant degree by similar spare-part acquisitions.

Through seven appearances with the Pirates, he owns an 8.59 ERA with eight strikeouts and four walks through 7 1/3 innings.

Yet the Pirates see potential in Santana, a native of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic.

“As we continue to move forward and learn more about him, I think we’re learning about his pitch types and which pitches are most effective,” bullpen coach Justin Meccage said. “We’re going to get to a point to where we’re going to throw his best pitches more often. He has a pretty good array of pitches.

“Shrinking that profile just a little bit to try to have his best pitches involved more often to get better results, that’s what we’re headed towards. We really like the slider. The four-seam fastball’s a really good pitch, and the cutter is a really good pitch. Those three pitches we really like.”

As Shelton pointed out, it was a hanging slider that undid Santana’s outing vs. the Mets.

However, when executed properly, Santana’s slider can be a useful weapon.

Across baseball, Santana has one of the better chase percentages, ranking in the top 12% of all pitchers, per Statcast.

That’s primarily thanks to the slider, which he throws about 27% of the time.

Santana complements his slider with a cutter (his second- most frequently thrown pitch at 24%) as well as a sinker and four-seamer that both average between 95 and 96 mph.

“I think it’s strike-to-ball, that’s where the chase rate is, just making it look like a strike and then it ends up a ball,” Shelton said. “The really fine line there is it being ball-to-ball, where it starts as a ball out of the hand and the hitter gives up on it.

“What we are seeing lately — and the encouraging signs that our group has been working on him with — is we are starting it strike-toball. The action of the pitch is so good.”

When the Yankees jettisoned him in June, it was an unfortunately familiar result for Santana, who previously was designated for assignment by the Dodgers in 2021 and four times by the Mets last season.

Reflecting both on prior MLB stops and current tenure with the Pirates, Santana desires to take the positive and negative in stride.

“You’ve got good months, and then you’ve got tough months,” he said. “You’ve just got to be in the middle, figure out what you need to do and how to get out of the bad moments. I feel like here (in Pittsburgh), it’s going to be better.”

In April, while still with the Yankees, Santana was performing at a far higher level, with a 3.95 ERA over 11 games.

He also put together exceptional (if unsustained) stretches with the Rangers in 2021 and 2022.

As he continues to work with Pirates pitching coaches, Santana aims to recreate what he did during those windows.

“Right now I feel like I’m getting back to the first month of the season, gaining confidence in throwing my pitches,” Santana said. “ … I think everything was in my favor: the pitches, confidence, getting in a lot of games. … I’m getting that back, so it’s going to be better.”