After a dominating start to the season which saw Johan Santana leading the league in several different pitching categories including ERA and strikeouts, it’s been a tremendous struggle since mid May and it may be time to start worrying.
Johan Santana isn’t just struggling, his velocity has been decreasing and he barely got over 90 MPH today at Yankee Stadium.
Since May 16 he has given up 45 hits and 26 runs in 36 innings with a 6.50 ERA.
Today, Santana had the worst start of his career against the Yankees. He was charged with nine runs, all earned, in three-plus innings pitched.
According to Adam Rubin, it was the most runs ever allowed by Santana, topping the eight runs he allowed on July 23, 2002 while with the Minnesota Twins, and, it also matched the shortest start of Santana’s career.
Earlier today, Kevin Burkhardt Twittered that Santana could be suffering from a dead arm period. If that’s true, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Before getting torched today by the Yankees, Santana was coming off a game in which he surrendered a career-high four homers against the Phillies.
His ERA now stands at 3.29 and that’s a full two points higher than it had been on May 1st.
Okay, now I’ve moved past concerned and am in full worried mode.
