Santana, a 25-year-old left-hander from Venezuela, treated the home crowd of 22,145 fans to a virtuoso performance in a 10-2 rout of the White Sox.
Santana won his 11th straight game and improved to 18-6, pitching seven scoreless innings, yielding only two hits, walking one and striking out seven to increase his league-leading total to 240.
Sox manager Ozzie Guillen endorsed any vote for Santana as a Cy Young winner.
He also lauded the Twins for making key plays in the nine-run sixth inning.
“To me, Santana is the best pitcher right now in baseball, at least in the American League,” Guillen said. “He always has been a good pitcher. Now, he has command and confidence. It’s obvious. He’s unbelievable.”
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For 51/2 innings Santana dueled fellow Venezuelan Freddy Garcia in a scoreless game. Then the Twins exploded for nine runs on six hits, three walks and two Sox errors in the sixth.
Garcia carried a no-hit game into the sixth. Two walks, a key sacrifice bunt by Shannon Stewart and RBI hits by Jacque Jones, Torii Hunter and Lew Ford produced four runs and chased Garcia from the game. The bullpen could not stop the bleeding.
“The Twins always execute and don’t make many mistakes,” Guillen said. “Freddy pitched a pretty good game, but he walked two guys, and Stewart executed the bunt. Freddy just threw one bad pitch. He got one up to Jones.”
Meanwhile, the Santana for Cy Young campaign rolled along at full swing.
An ad in Tuesday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune urged fans to come out to the Metrodome and cheer for Santana. Fans at the game received “Santana for Cy Young” buttons for the American League leader in ERA, strikeouts and lowest opponents’ batting average (.195).
“Santana is the best pitcher in baseball,” Sox hitting coach Greg Walker said. “But we beat him two out of three. We can win again. All we need is one run and then shut them out.”
Santana needed only 32 pitches, 20 of them strikes, to blank the Sox on one hit through the first three innings. He allowed just two singles through seven innings.
Garcia was even tougher early. He walked two and hit one through five hitless innings.
In the fourth, Santana responded to Garcia’s hitting Hunter in the first. Santana drilled Carlos Lee with a pitch. Home-plate umpire Mark Wegner warned both pitchers and managers.
Wegner did not warn the Sox, however, about the trouble that would strike them in the sixth.