Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana hurls third shutout of season

Minnesota Twins starter Ervin Santana pitched his third shutout of the year Friday and knocked in 3 runs at the plate in a 4-0 win over the San Francisco Giants.

What It Means:

Santana basically won this game by himself, dealing on the mound and delivering with the bat. He held San Fran to 4 hits and 1 walk while fanning 5.

Santana's traditional stats look great -- 8-3 record with a 2.20 ERA -- but his peripherals don't check out. He's sporting a 4.86 SIERA with a 9.6% walk rate, both of which are actually career-worst clips. On the plus side, he's limiting hard contact as well as he ever has in his career with a 23.3% hard-hit rate and 21.2% soft-hit rate. All in all, he's going to have a tough time continuing his surprising season unless he starts limiting free passes and getting more punchouts.