Right-hander Edgar Santana couldn’t get through to his mother. Seated on the Class AAA Indianapolis team bus outside a ballpark late Friday night in Columbus, Ohio, Santana had just been told by manager Andy Barkett he was headed to Pittsburgh to join the Pirates. Santana knew his mother already would be asleep, but this was a good reason to wake her.
On the fourth try, his mother answered.
“I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to the big leagues,’ “ Santana recalled. “She said, ‘Oh, my son, I always told you to keep going.’ She was so happy. Everybody woke up and threw a party back home.”
No one in Santana’s hometown, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, expected him to become a professional baseball player. He didn’t play baseball growing up, and he was 19 when he first tried pitching. Most players with major League aspirations from his area sign at 16 or 17 or not at all. The Pirates signed Santana four days before his 22nd birthday after failed tryouts for the Washington Nationals, Houston Astros and an academy for youths wanting to play in Japan.
Santana, 25, was supposed to be a school teacher. His father worked as a hotel housekeeper, and his mother was approaching an age where she could no longer work. Santana recalled her saying, “I need you to help me.” He replied, “It’s OK. Let me take a little bit of time to get my mind fresh, and then I’ll go to the university to be a teacher.”
The baseball dream was realized rather quickly. Santana, armed with a mid-90s mph fastball and a wicked slider, rocketed from Class A to Class AAA in 2016, and after posting a 1.93 ERA in 23 appearances for Indianapolis this season he was in line for a promotion to the Pirates.
“I feel very proud of myself,” Santana said. “One of the things that helped me keep going, keep working, was the people who said, ‘You’re not going to make it. You’re not going to sign. You’re too old. You’re not going to get to the big leagues.’ I did my job. I did everything I had to do to be prepared every day. I believed in myself. I knew I could get to the big leagues.”
Santana arrived at PNC Park Saturday about two hours before a game against the Miami Marlins, and he debuted in the fifth inning. The first batter he faced was Ichiro Suzuki, 43, a future Hall of Famer.
“It was an honor facing that kind of hitter,” Santana said. “Before my first pitch, I was a little scared, [thinking], oh my God, it’s Ichiro. After the first pitch, I said to myself, ‘Oh, I’ve got this. I can get this guy out.’”
Santana retired Suzuki and Christian Yelich before the Marlins pushed across a run on two doubles, one aided by David Freese’s whiffing on a ground ball at third base. When he returned to the clubhouse, Santana put the ball from his first pitch in his locker to send to his mother. On his cellphone, he found a video his family had taken of him pitching on TV.
“They were going crazy,” he said, smiling.
Gosselin gone
Infielder Phil Gosselin was optioned to Indianapolis Monday to make room on the roster for right-hander Jameson Taillon. Gosselin is 5 for 37 (.135) in 24 games over two stints with the Pirates. He played 22 games for the Indians over the past month and batted .310.
The Pirates roster currently is imbalanced, with eight relievers and four bench players. Catchers Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart will need roster spots soon when they return from injuries.
Getting on track
Right-hander Gerrit Cole will look for a bounce-back start Monday against the Colorado Rockies. In 19⅓ innings over his past four starts, Cole allowed 23 runs, and opponents batted .411 against him. In that span, Cole’s ERA has climbed from 2.84 to 4.83.
Manager Clint Hurdle often says others’ expectations often result in resentment.
“If Gerrit Cole doesn’t meet the expectations of X, Y and Z out there, they get mad,” Hurdle said. “They think he’s this, or they think he’s not doing that. That’s so far disconnected from the truth, it’s sad at times.”
Root rebrand
Root Sports — a regional sports network with a channel in Pittsburgh which carries exclusive coverage of 150 Pirates games, 70 Penguins games and more — will be rebranded as AT&T SportsNet in July, the network’s parent company, AT&T Sports Networks, announced Monday. The network was named Root Sports in 2011, replacing the previous moniker, FSN Pittsburgh.
In a release, the company said the rebranding will include “a more iconic graphics package, bringing in a mixture of photography and animation to replace the purely animated ones used before” while adopting a new logo incorporating the AT&T globe. Visual changes gradually will take effect in three markets, including Pittsburgh, and on-air changes will begin July 14.
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: June 13, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
