Below Deck: Santana shows 'ice in his veins' in Indy pen

Edgar Santana did not know what a changeup was, let alone how to pitch, when he first started playing baseball as a 19-year-old in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

"I had no idea what I was doing," he said.

Santana was playing catch with a cousin one day when a trainer, Nelson Calvo, asked him to give pitching a try. With his delivery "a mess," Santana threw an 85-mph fastball on his first throw.

That pitch, and learning the nuances of the position, led Santana to Indianapolis. Now a 25-year-old reliever for the Pirates' Triple-A affiliate, Santana is using a 95-mph fastball to set up what Baseball America called the best slider in the organization.

His dream of reaching the major leagues is near after learning how to pitch later than most, but he has one more weapon to add before the organization feels he's ready for that next step: A changeup.



The right-hander was told by the organization in 2015 that he must learn the pitch if he is going to have a long major league career. His four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball and slider are simply not enough if he's asked to face a hitter more than once.

"It's similar to when I first started pitching," Santana told DKPittsburghSports.com in Columbus on May 15. "But this is much more difficult. The changeup takes time."

His first attempt at the pitch in 2015 did not go well. When he threw it in a bullpen session for the first time it was nearly as fast as his fastball. The moment was discouraging for Santana. It also didn't help that his slider was becoming close to unhittable.

To Santana, experimenting with a changeup in a game was a risk not worth taking sometimes, but weeks of practice finally gave him the confidence to try it against an opponent. The first one yielded a ground ball to second base.

"That felt good, but it wasn't nasty enough," Santana said.

It's been nearly two years, and Santana is still learning when and how to throw it.

That led Santana, who was signed by the Pirates in 2014 and did not start learning how to throw a slider until he played in the Dominican Summer League that year, to ask for advice this season. He's had frequent discussions with Indianapolis reliever A.J. Schugel, who pitched in 36 games for the Pirates, on how to both grip and throw the pitch.

Such advice has helped at times, but Santana is still searching for consistency. He mixes in the changeup during his bullpen sessions and in his daily throwing program, and uses it in low-leverage situations in games as practice.

When it's time to close out a game — which he's done five times this season — it's all fastballs and sliders, and his manager said that's more than enough for Santana to succeed.

"He’s shown ice in his veins," Indianapolis manager Andy Barkett said. "The changeup is a weapon, but with his fastball and breaking ball alone, he really doesn’t even need it, to be honest. When he gets to the big leagues and he has to go through a lineup a couple times he’ll need it, but right now he can get away with just a fastball and a breaking ball."

Santana's numbers have indicated as much. In his first full Triple-A season, he's allowed only five runs in 28 2/3 innings, and four of those runs have come in his last two appearances. That snapped a scoreless innings streak of 21 2/3 innings, and he has struck out 28 batters with only six walks for a 1.57 ERA.

That's a vast improvement from his production last season, when he had a 5.06 ERA and 1.75 WHIP in 16 innings with Indianapolis. He's being used in high-leverage situations late, as well as in a middle relief role, and that versatility increases the likelihood he'll reach the major leagues "at some point here," as Neal Huntington said last Sunday.

He'd do so with three pitches ready to get major league players out. It's the fourth pitch that he and the Pirates are hoping comes sooner rather than later to ensure his stay will be a long one.

"I need to get that changeup to be nasty," Santana said with a smile. "That will keep me in the big leagues."

MORE FROM INDIANAPOLIS

Nick Kingham's journey back to the pitching mound in Indianapolis did not go as planned. The right-hander experienced a minor ankle injury toward the end of spring training.

That injury came during his return from Tommy John surgery, which occurred in May 2015 after he threw 31 1/3 innings for Indianapolis. That forced him to miss most of last season, but Kingham threw 46 innings in 2016, most of which came in the Gulf Coast League.

He finished the season with Altoona, allowing seven runs on six hits in 11 innings. It took two years, but he's back with the Indians and has looked sharp in his first four starts.

Kingham struck out eight in six innings, allowing three runs at Lehigh Valley on May 23, and looked even better in his next start, striking out five in 6 1/3 innings Sunday at Rochester. He owns a 2.35 ERA in 23 innings, and opponents are batting .171 against him.

Neal Huntington said the reports on Kingham have been nothing but positive. The 25-year-old former fourth-round pick is being more aggressive with his fastball and is developing more consistency with his changeup.

The organization wants him to gain more experience in Triple-A, but that has not changed the expectation for Kingham this season.

"Really, just gaining experience and confidence at that level, and continues to be a guy that we think can and will help us at some point this year," he told reporters Sunday at PNC Park.

• Right-hander Tyler Eppler is experiencing growing pains while implementing a slider into his repertoire, and that led to issues in his last start.

Eppler walked four and allowed seven hits in 5 1/3 on May 20 against Toledo, and entered in relief in the seventh inning against Lehigh Valley last Thursday. He received another start Tuesday night, allowing three runs in seven innings with five strikeouts.

• Austin Meadows seems to be rediscovering the confidence that eluded him early this season. The Pirates' top prospect was batting .350 with a .950 OPS over his past 20 games entering Tuesday. He was also 10 for 18 with a home run, three RBI and five runs in his previous four games.

Meadows, who is still just 22 years old, has raised his batting average to .262 and his OPS to .692, with 25 RBI in 46 games.

It's a turnaround that Barkett expected after a slow start, one that was a result of putting too much pressure on himself.

"There’s outside pressures that are very easy to put on yourself in trying to chase results, to try to chase a promotion instead of just being yourself, being the best version of Austin Meadows he can be," Barkett said. "When he learns to do that every day, which he has in the past — he doesn’t have to learn to do it, he just has to do it — then we’re going to see the guy in Pittsburgh at some point that everybody has been waiting to see."

ALTOONA ALERT

• Second baseman Kevin Kramer is batting .231 over his last 10 games, dropping his average to .319. He has 16 doubles with three triples and five home runs in 43 games, owning a .406 on-base percentage.

• Kevin Newman continues to struggle in his first season with the Curve. The former first-round pick has not had a multi-hit game since May 17 and his average has dropped to .232. He has 10 extra-base hits, including one home run, and a .296 on-base percentage for Altoona,

BRADENTON BREAKDOWN 

The other pitcher the Pirates acquired from the Nationals for Mark Melancon last August is progressing in Bradenton.

Taylor Hearn, a 6-foot-5 left-handed starter, had his best outing of the season Saturday, striking out seven batters and allowing three hits in seven scoreless innings.

The 22-year-old has 57 strikeouts to 17 walks in 45 2/3 innings and a 1.20 WHIP.

• Right-handed starter Mitch Keller, a second-round pick in 2015, will miss more time than expected with lower back tightness. He has not played since suffering a setback May 16, when he was pulled one inning into his start. Huntington said Sunday night at PNC Park that the Pirates will be cautious with the prospect.

“Mitch was ready to get into competition again and felt some continued tightness and so he is going to have a little bit longer time down as kind of a recurrence of the issue that set him aside that one start,” Huntington said. “He felt great and checked every box to be able to take that next step forward and when he took the next step forward, it grabbed on him again. So probably go a little bit more slowly this time through, but he feels better than he did when it grabbed on him again and should be just a relatively minor thing. But we want to make sure we keep it that way.”

The injury became an issue six days prior to that last start, as Keller was forced to leave after 4 2/3 innings at Jupiter on May 10 for Bradenton, which had lost seven of its last 10 games entering Tuesday.

• Will Craig, the Pirates’ first-round pick last June, is batting .225 over his last 10 games and has now struck out 41 times in 175 at-bats. He had 37 strikeouts in 218 at-bats with short-season West Virginia last year, but the first baseman has 25 RBI and a .364 on-base percentage.

• Shortstop Cole Tucker has stolen a team-record 27 bases and is batting .280 with 18 extra-base hits.