Santana, Saunders lift Angels

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If Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders had written "How I Spent My Winter Vacation" essays in spring training, there's a good chance the line "perfecting my pitches so I'm not the odd man out" would have been in both compositions. Entering this year, the two were set to battle for the fifth spot in the Los Angeles Angels' rotation. Entering the sixth week of the season, they still are battling. Only now it's a friendly competition of "who's going to lose first," Saunders said. It hasn't happened yet, as both pitchers are 6-0 while off to the best starts of their young careers. And it's more than a pleasant surprise for the Angels -- it's enabled them to overcome injuries to the top pitchers in their rotation and challenge for the best record in the American League. "Right now they are absolutely fun to watch," said pitching coach Mike Butcher, who's partly responsible for the success stories. Turning around Santana is remarkable enough, after the 25-year-old right-hander went 7-14 with a 5.76 ERA last season and was given a month-long sentence in the minors. Given a checklist of how to simplify his delivery and get rid of his mental anguish following his disastrous season, Santana went home to the Dominican Republic and dominated the winter league. He combined on a no-hitter, had a 2.13 ERA in five starts, striking out 27 in 25 1/3 innings, and finished his winter with 16 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings. Saunders' progress was more easily tracked by Butcher. The two often would get together to throw near their homes in Chandler, Ariz. "I wanted to start early because I was fighting for a job," said Saunders, a 26-year-old left-hander. "I knew me and Santana were going to be fighting for that fifth spot and I had to get ready." So he and Butcher would head to Snedigar Park, the Milwaukee Brewers' old complex, sometimes hopping the fence to get in. "We were trying, not to fix my mechanics, but to get on the same arm slot (for) my fastball and my change-up," said Saunders, who wanted to work despite a 15-8 record and 4.71 ERA in 33 starts over the previous two seasons. "That's been my main difference, I think, from this year to last year." The difference for Santana has come from wiping his brain clean of anything concerning 2007. And he makes sure to remind everyone about that when the subject comes up. "I'm not focused on what I do bad or what I did bad in the past," he said. "I'm just focusing on what I need to do now." Both are freed from past problems: Saunders yo-yoing between Class AAA and the majors for the past two seasons, and the road woes that plagued Santana until this season. The shoulder injury that caused Saunders to miss all of 2003, the elbow problems that forced Santana missed the second half of 2004. The biggest factor in their growth as pitchers, according to catcher Mike Napoli, is this: "More experience." "They're pitching, they're not throwing anymore. They know their stuff," he said. "I think their concentration, too -- that's a big thing. They're not losing their concentration from inning to inning or pitch to pitch. They're into it. "They're good pitchers and they're finding out how good they are. Every win they get just builds more confidence." Santana and Saunders were borderline starters before both made the rotation when injuries felled top starters John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar. Now they are two of the best in the game. Consider: They are tied for the most wins of any team's best pair of starting pitchers. Their 12 wins account for more than half of the Angels' total. They rank among the league leaders in ERA -- Santana (2.02) is third and Saunders (2.61) eighth. They are only the eighth set of teammates since 1920 to start 6-0, and just the third and fourth Angels to do it. In little more than a month they're almost a third of the way to equaling the 37 wins of last year's aces, Lackey and Escobar. Interesting parallels aside -- both had to be sent to the minors; each is expecting a child in July -- the two pitchers are as different as Santana's hometown of San Cristobal and Saunders' home of Springfield, Va. Santana uses a 97 mph fastball to get past hitters and throws two different sliders -- one that cuts into the strike zone, another that hitters chase out of the zone -- and Saunders relies on mixing his change-up in with his low-90s fastball. But both have shown a considerable amount of backbone, and though young, they've already learned the significance of using the whole plate. "You look at the pitchers in this game, the guys that are able to pitch inside generally are the guys who have won a lot of games and pitch deep in the game and are able to get by with a mistake every now and then," Butcher said. "They both pitch inside extremely well. I think that's absolutely a huge reason why they're having success." (Contact Matt Hurst at mhurst@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)