Whenever he was introduced by the Pirates back in November, one of the things Carlos Santana said he wanted to do was to get people dancing. He's about as gregarious as they come, a self-proclaimed happy guy.
So when he sent this Matt Bush four-seamer 109 mph off the bat, over PNC Park's right field seats and deep into the Pittsburgh night to beat the Brewers, 8-7, Friday before an electrified crowd of 29,179 ...
... he made sure to savor that moment before his teammates mobbed him at the plate by, of course, dancing:
"I had to do it," a beaming Santana said.
"He surprises me sometimes because he doesn't do a whole lot," Andrew McCutchen said about the dance moves. "He's that quiet guy that you don't know that much about, and then something happens and you're like, 'Man, I didn't know you had that in you.' "
"That was sick," Josh Palacios would tell me. "That was definitely the energy of the boys right there. It's how we all felt right there."
Case in point: McCutchen's reaction watching it from second base:
"It's quite a view," McCutchen said on watching it sail out.
That two-out, two-run shot capped the comeback for the Pirates to beat the Brewers. While it's hard to call any June game a must-win, knocking off a divisional opponent in comeback fashion sure feels like a boost.
The Pirates trailed by four runs on two separate occasions, first in the third inning and then again in the seventh. Down 7-4 in the eighth inning, Santana got things started with a double and scored on a Jack Suwinski base hit. In the ninth, McCutchen, doubled to bring the Pirates back to within one and watched from second base as Santana cleared the bleachers.
"It’s important," Derek Shelton said. "We went into their place and didn’t play very well. They swept us. To continue to grind because of the fact you get down four, you lose your starter early, that’s a game that you can let get away from you. Your guys didn’t. I’ve said all along, they’re resilient. They continue to go."
That resiliency? The team takes after Santana there.
This has been an up-and-down offensive season for Santana, though things are certainly looking up of late. He doubled from both sides of the plate Friday to go along with his home run, boosting his season slash line to .247/.326/.421. That's a hair above average and buoyed by a terrific homestand where he's picked up 10 hits and three home runs in four games.
"Really consistent at-bats, using the entire field," Shelton said about his first baseman's hot stretch. "Not just pulling the ball but driving the ball to left field. All kinds of hits. But having the barrel of the bat out front."
Santana has experimented with a toe tap at times this year before going back to the leg kick, but in this reporter's opinion, it appears he is a bit more grounded and balanced in his set up than what we saw at times recently. Mind the footwork from these two swings, one against the Athletics earlier in June and a homer Wednesday against the Padres:
"I feel good," Santana said. "I’m working hard on my swing, with my body, preparing to play hard every day."
Even before this hot stretch, though, Santana was entrenched in the cleanup spot in the order, something Shelton claimed publicly on a recent road trip that he didn't consider changing. For a team that had been struggling to produce offense, he wanted a steady hand in that spot. On Friday, McCutchen and Santana showed why that's valuable, with McCutchen starting the comeback bid with a home run in the fourth as part of his three-hit night.
"The game doesn’t go fast for those guys, regardless of the situation," Shelton said. "That’s what good, veteran players do. We have two really good ones."
Steady veterans have led the way for four-run comebacks in back-to-back games. Those types of wins can send a statement.
And sometimes that statement can be as simple as McCutchen's assessment: "It says we need to score some runs early so we don't need to keep doing that."
"We've been down early, but being able to come back late shows that we're not pressing, we're staying within ourselves," McCutchen said. "When things weren't going the way that we wanted it to and we were down, that's because we were pressing. We were trying to create something that wasn't there. Right now, it's just letting the game come to us a little more, keep applying pressure on the basepaths. Next guy up right now. That's what we've done these last four games or so. Shows what we're capable of doing."
This team seems capable of anything, not always in a good way. They've gone on stretches of 11 wins in 12 games and 12 losses in 13 games. At the midpoint of the season, they are a humble 39-42, but have ridden rollercoasters to reach that point.
Still, the team unquestionably does its best when looser. Santana contributes a lot to that, and he does have everyone dancing down those home run lines where the batter wields the cutlass and wears the home run jacket Santana brought.
"He's got everybody doing it now," Palacios said. "It's good for the guys, good for the energy."
But that dance Friday was a little different. That was for his teammates.
"Today is a special moment," Santana said. "We came back to win the game."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: OF Bryan Reynolds (back), 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes (back)
• 15-day injured list: LHP Jose Hernandez (calf), LHP Rob Zastryzny (forearm), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Josh Palacios, LF
2. Andrew McCutchen, DH
3. Henry Davis, RF
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Jack Suwinski, CF
6. Nick Gonzales, 2B
7. Tucupita Marcano, SS
8. Jared Triolo, 3B
9. Austin Hedges, C
And for Craig Counsell's Brewers:
1. Christian Yelich, DH
2. William Contreras, C
3. Rowdy Tellez, 1B
4. Willy Adames, SS
5. Owen Miller, 3B
6. Brice Turanc, 2B
7. Blake Perkins, LF
8. Joey Wiemer, CF
9. Raimel Tapia, RF
THE SCHEDULE
Johan Oviedo (3-8, 4.06) will try push the winning streak to five Saturday whenever he takes on former Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes (5-5, 4.10). First pitch is 4:05 p.m. I'll have you covered.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
Visit our team feed for all the latest around the clock and our team page for everything else.
