Postgame: Santana knew long first inning would shorten start

NEW YORK — A trio of extras from the Twins' latest losing streak:

While reading Saturday's lineups over the PA system before Saturday's game, the Yankees announced that "Danny Santana" would be the Twins' starting pitching, with the infielder's photo appearing on the scoreboard.

So maybe it was never supposed to be Ervin Santana's day anyway.

By walking Jacoby Ellsbury and giving up a single to Brett Gardner to open the game, the veteran righthander needed 29 pitches to get out of the first inning. While New York didn't score a run, it all but guaranteed a short start for Santana.

It also continued a puzzling trend: Santana can't seem to retire the first batter of the game this season. In his 14 starts, the leadoff hitter has collected seven hits, including two doubles and a home run, and walked twice, including Ellsbury's on Saturday. That's a .583 average, a .642 on-base percentage and 1.000 slugging.

But "Ervin seemed to get better in the course of his stint," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "Unfortunately, the pitch count kind of bit him."

Santana, using more changeups than normal, held the Yankees scoreless through four inning, and retired the first two batters in the fifth. Then Ellsbury, Gardner and Carlos Beltran struck with consecutive singles, the last one scoring Ellsbury with the tying run.

Molitor sent Santana out for a sixth inning, but a leadoff single by Brian McCann changed his mind, and the veteran was done, marking the sixth time in 14 starts that Santana failed to complete more than five innings. Still, he reduced his ERA to 4.64 — easily the best on the Twins.

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That an error cost the Twins the game-winning run on Saturday just continues a trend for the last-place team. They've had trouble hitting and trouble pitching, but the fielding errors are the ones that get replayed over and over, making the team look even more hapless.

"I keep tabs on where we're ranking defensively," Molitor said. "Errors are going to happen from time to time. A lot of times, a good team can overcome them — they pick each other up, someone makes a play, a pitcher makes a pitch."

That doesn't happen much for the Twins, though. And it's cost them back-to-back games in New York, where Minnesota gave up three unearned runs on Friday, then failed to turn the double play, when Eduardo Escobar booted a ground ball, that would have prevented the go-ahead run on Saturday.

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On the other hand, the Twins did have one impressive defensive play on Saturday. The Yankees had the bases loaded with one out shortly after Escobar's error in the eighth inning, and Chase Headley was at the plate. After taking a ball, Headley lifted a fly ball to left that Robbie Grossman had to back up by a step or two to catch. Once he did, catcher Brian McCann headed for the plate.