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Johan Alexander Santana Araque is a Venezuelan former professional baseball starting pitcher. Santana pitched in Major League Baseball for the Minnesota Twins from 2000 to 2007 and for the New York Mets from 2008 to 2012. A two-time Cy Young Award winner with the Twins, Santana is a four-time All-Star and earned a pitching triple crown in 2006. On June 1, 2012, Santana pitched the first no-hitter in New York Mets history against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Santana's pitch repertoire included an 88–94 mph fastball along with a circle changeup, which was generally considered his best pitch, and a slider.
He spent a lot of his
Johan Alexander Santana Araque is a Venezuelan former professional baseball starting pitcher. Santana pitched in Major League Baseball for the Minnesota Twins from 2000 to 2007 and for the New York Mets from 2008 to 2012. A two-time Cy Young Award winner with the Twins, Santana is a four-time All-Star and earned a pitching triple crown in 2006. On June 1, 2012, Santana pitched the first no-hitter in New York Mets history against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Santana's pitch repertoire included an 88–94 mph fastball along with a circle changeup, which was generally considered his best pitch, and a slider.
He spent a lot of his career on the disabled list, rehabbing various injuries. Beginning in 2000 as a relief pitcher for the Twins, it was in 2002 when Santana found his footing, starting 14 games and going 8-6 with a 2.99 ERA. In 2003, he had a record of 12-3 with an ERA of 3.07. He started 18 of the 45 games he appeared, as the Twins were still deciding is he should be a full time starter. The next season, 2004, he started 34 games and pitched 228 innings and went 20-6 with an ERA of 2.61, which led the AL, as did his 265 strike outs, and his Adjusted ERA (ERA+) of 182 led the majors. He was awarded his first Cy Young Award after the season.
Santana pitched another three seasons for Minnesota, leading the AL in several major pitching categories and pitching well over 200 innings in each season. He won the second Cy Young of his career after the 2006 season, where he achieved the Pitching Triple Crown of leading the AL in Wins, ERA, and Strikeouts; more than that, he led both major leagues in each category, a more rare feat (only the twelfth time in baseball history at that time and not achieved again until the 2020 COVID-shortened year).
In the 2008 off-season, Santana was traded to the New York Mets, for whom he had three meaningful seasons, going a combined 40-25, 2.85 ERA, and an ERA+ of 143.
In 2009, he was ranked number 3 on the Sporting News' list of the 50 greatest current players in baseball, behind Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez. A panel of 100 baseball people, many of them members of the Baseball Hall of Fame and winners of major baseball awards, was polled to arrive at the list.
After a rough start to the 2010 season, Santana recovered quickly. From July 1 – 23, he was 3–0 with a 0.71 ERA in five starts. Santana, who was struggling to keep his 10–9 record through September 2, strained his pectoral muscle in a 65 pitch start versus Atlanta, for the second time in his career. His last game of the season was a win against the Atlanta Braves on September 2. On September 14, he underwent surgery to repair a torn anterior capsule in his left shoulder. Santana ended his season with a record of 11–9 and an ERA of 2.98. This was the third consecutive year that Johan had gotten injured.
Santana started 21 more games in his career. All of those in the 2012 season for the New York Mets, where he went 6-9 with a career high ERA of 4.85.
On June 1, in only the 11th start since returning from shoulder surgery, Santana threw a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals, the defending World Series champions. This was the first no-hitter in Mets franchise history, coming in their 51st season and 8,020th regular-season game. It marked only the eighth no-hitter in MLB history against a defending World Series champion team, the first since former Met Nolan Ryan blanked the Oakland Athletics in 1990.
Santana tore his shoulder capsule for the second time during early 2013, before making his first start. He would require surgery and after the season, the Mets bought out the remainder of his contract.
After numerous attempts to regain his career, signing a few minor league contracts with the Orioles and Blue Jays, Santana was forced to retire.
Santana was elected to the Twins Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Tags: Baseball (1), Venezuela (1), Born 1969 (1), New York Mets (1), Minnesota Twins (1), Cy Young Award (1), Pitching Triple Crown (1), Left-Handed Pitcher (1), Latin American Baseball (1), Tovar (1), Circle Changeup (1)
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