Johan Santana improves his pitching as he progresses ahead in the season - MLB Update
Throwing 99 pitches against Washington Nationals, New York Mets have started to see his best coming forth. By the time Santana was being pushed for the opening day start, concerns were raised about his effectiveness as he was returning to the Major League
after more than one year.
As he went on to impress everyone, only his inability to stay on the mound for greater number of innings had been under the scanner since then.
Since his shorter spell on the mound means over-reliance on the bullpen, manager Terry Collins wanted to see him standing on the mound for more than five innings at-least.
His outing against the Nationals has relieved the manager to some extent who is looking forward to further improvements from him in the next games.
Although Santana was unable to be as good as his matchup Stephen Strasburg was in the game, he allowed only one run.
Stephen is another pitcher whose comeback to Nationals is not different to that of him in terms of the kind of an injury they faced and the time it kept them out from the play.
Praising the way Stephen brought victory to his side with a commanding outing on the mound, Santana said it was fascinating watching him.
“He commands three pitches, he throws everything for strikes and he challenges you,” Santana said. “He’s got a lot of games ahead of him and he’s going to get better.”
As regard to his own performance he said it was not the best of the days to pitch, especially at the start it was tough adjusting to the atmosphere there he believed.
“It was a tough day out there, it was kind of tough to get a grip on the ball,” he said. “I warmed up fine and was ready to go, I just have to be more aggressive in the beginning of the game so I can go deeper into the game.”
As he plays more games, his real pitching strength that he has will be on display. Mets will hope to see him gaining momentum after every game and increase the amount of time that he spends on the mound for them.
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