Johan Santana Begins Comeback Attempt

Armed with two Cy Young Awards, a six-year stretch that rivaled some of the best peaks of the last 20 years and a new six-year, $137.5 million contract, it wasn’t that long ago that Johan Santana was on top of the baseball world.

And then, well, and then dude starting falling apart.

Call it bad luck. Call it what you will. But for three straight years (2008-2010), the lefty finished his season on the disabled list. Then, in 2011, he was shelved for the entire yet.

Santana was back with the Mets in 2012 and was pitching pretty well. So well, in fact, that on June 1, he threw the first no-hitter in team history. But, it wasn’t long after that he ended up hurt again and, ultimately, Santana, again, ended the season on the shelf.

And that’s been it.

So here we are, on the cusp of the 2015 and Santana is back. Sort of.

Now, the 35-year-old is attempting a comeback…finding himself in the Venezuelan Winter League, pitching for the Tigres de Aragua.

“He’s excited. Obviously, it’s been awhile. We’ll see how he does,” one of Santana’s reps at The Legacy Agency. “He feels like he’s got a lot left in the tank and he was really close to coming back from something that no one had come back from.”

How’d he do? Funny you should ask.

Johan Santana is done today. 2.0 IP, 17 pitches, 0 H, no runs. Six batters faced

— Marcos Grunfeld 🇮🇱 / Sígueme en YouTube (@TheBeatwriter) January 14, 2015

Not too shabby.

Santana hasn’t pitched in the Majors since August, 17, 2012 and, it would appear, he’s lost a little zip on his fastball, but that didn’t stop eleven scouts from making the trip south to join the more than 13,400 in attendance.

Something tells me this story isn’t over.