Santana's savvy veteran presence sets up pinch-hit, walk-off knock

MINNEAPOLIS -- As Carlos Santana approaches his 2,000th career game played as a Major Leaguer, he’s built up quite the mental Rolodex of the league through all those at-bats against all those pitchers as part of all those teams -- and he had to go back a few years to remember the time he shared a clubhouse with Phil Maton in Cleveland.

That veteran knowledge helped the Twins reward the fans at Target Field that stuck through a one-hour, 23-minute rain delay into the late hours of Tuesday night, as Santana’s pinch-hit, walk-off single off his old teammate in the ninth inning sent the Twins to a 7-6 victory over the Rays, their third walk-off win of the season and their sixth consecutive victory.

“We have a lot of guys who are swinging the bats good and we can’t get them all in the lineup every day,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It’s a really interesting and good thing for us. And he’s able to go out there and put the ball in play, make something happen. And he found some grass. It was great.”

Then, as Santana walked off the field, he even found the time to mark the occasion by grabbing a fan’s phone and taking a selfie with a group of kids in the stands -- because when the Twins are running hot on one of their upswings (they’ve won eight of nine), the vibes are good.

“The kid asked for a selfie,” Santana said. “I liked that. Especially since I have kids, too. I don't want any players to say no. That's why I tried to be a good person for the kids, for everybody.”

Coupled with another three-hit game from the scorching-hot Carlos Correa (27-for-51 in his last 12 games) and a four-run rally in the fourth inning highlighted by a three-run double from Willi Castro, the Twins erased an early 4-0 deficit created by another challenging outing from Pablo López.

It’s unclear if Baldelli knew fully of the history between Santana and Maton, who evidently still chat via Messenger from time to time, but the skipper deployed the veteran first baseman off the bench with two outs in the ninth in what hadn’t been a clear pinch-hit situation after both Manuel Margot and Correa had singled to put the winning run at second in a tie game.

The main reason for pinch-hitting for Jose Miranda -- who hit a game-winning homer to the third deck in Sunday’s series finale against the A’s -- was that Maton has been particularly stingy against right-handed hitters, having held righties to a .430 OPS last season, as opposed to an .856 OPS against left-handed hitters.

So, with the acknowledgment that there were many pitchers against whom Baldelli would not have pinch-hit for Miranda, Santana was sent to the plate -- and he went armed with knowledge.

“I know what kind of approach he would have, so I tried to swing slow because of the pitches for him to make outs, especially in that situation,” Santana said. “This is the approach that I had. Like the curveball, [I] tried to hit it in the middle. That's why.”

He got two consecutive curveballs and knocked the second over the head of Tampa Bay second baseman Brandon Lowe for the game-winner that marked the 12th walk-off of his career and his second as a pinch-hitter -- which is an unusual situation for him.

Santana stayed ready not only through the long two-hour, 45-minute game, but also the lengthy rain delay minutes into the fifth inning as part of a rare day out of the starting lineup for one of the game’s recent iron men.

The veteran always wants to play badly enough that Baldelli spoke on several occasions about how Santana prodded him during the first game of the Twins’ Sunday doubleheader -- contested in hot and humid weather -- to ensure that he could play in the second game amid the logjam at first base created by Miranda’s continued success and Royce Lewis’ health.

“Honestly, he's ready for anything,” Baldelli said. “We're in a doubleheader, it's like 90 degrees outside, guys are sweating bullets, the sweat stains are coming through the clothes and he's poking me at the bat rack talking me into playing him in Game 2.”

And from that unfamiliar position, Santana relied on his routine and savvy -- and found a way.

“I'm the veteran, so I have a lot of situations, a lot of spots,” Santana said. “Days where I don't play, my mentality is to finish [it].”