Mike Trout had four hits, 2 RBIs and a run scored but it wasn't enough to erase the 7 runs Santana gave up in the first 5 innings.
Santana has not been right this year. Whether it's control or focus, he has not been able to miss bats very often. Santana has had the rap of a good year/bad year type of player. He would always follow up a good season with a bad to mediocre season. Last year was the first time he had back-to-back stellar years, and it made us forget about the whole Jekyll and Hyde persona. However, Mr. Hyde has reared his ugly head and, like Bruce Banner and the Hulk in The Avengers, Santana needs to find a way to get it under control.
A couple of solutions that might help the struggling righty:
1. Skip a start:
Give the guy a break, skip his next start and see if he comes back with a fresh look. We often hear about streaks and slumps that a batter can get into, but the same thing happens for pitchers too. If you're beating yourself up, you're going to continue to do so until something messes up your habits.
2. Send Santana to work with a veteran pitcher:
Guys like Chuck Finley or even Clyde Wright, who works right down the street, immediately come to mind. Just like Mickey Hatcher and the Angels offense, whatever Mike Butcher is saying to Santana is clearly not working. He needs to hear something different from someone else, a fresh perspective, to get him out of his own head and maybe fine tune his mechanics some more.
3. Send Santana down to Triple A to get his confidence back:
This one is the one least likely to happen as Santana has been a fixture in the Angels rotation for a few years now, and the Angels don't have any depth at the starter position with Jered Weaver out, but sometimes all you need to do is beat up on someone lesser than you to feel better about yourself.
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