Lake County Corn Dogs catcher Matt Santana feared the worst — but only for a moment.
During a June 27 game against the Griffith Generals, the 2023 Lake Central graduate felt pain in his left groin after he veered from the base path to avoid a collision near first base.
“I went down to my knees, and I knew something was wrong,” Santana said. “But once I got up and started walking on it, I knew it wasn’t anything big.”
It’s a small setback for Santana, who called the injury “annoying” as he tries to prepare for college baseball by playing in the pre-professional Northern League this summer. He has appeared in just five games for the Corn Dogs. He has two doubles among his six hits in 15 at-bats and seven RBIs.
Santana remains optimistic he’ll return in time to help the Corn Dogs defend their Northern League title.
“It’s gotten better over the last few weeks,” he said. “But I don’t want to rush back and tweak it again. I think I’ll be good for the playoffs.”
Santana learned to be patient with an injury before. He suffered a dislocated right shoulder and torn labrum during the summer before his sophomore year at Lake Central, and that recovery has been a multiyear process.
Santana was limited to a role as a designated hitter the following season but played more in the field as a junior. This past season, he hit .430 with 10 doubles, a triple, two home runs and 27 RBIs as Lake Central reached a Class 4A regional final.
But the time Santana missed in his high school career led to another decision that’s also going to require some patience. Instead of going directly to Tennessee, to which he committed in October 2019, he is planning to spend his first two college seasons at Wabash Valley, an elite juco program.
“With my shoulder being hurt in my freshman year, it was a long recovery, and I’m still not where I want to be,” he said. “So I decided the junior college route might be better so I could develop for two more years and get back to where I was before I go play at Tennessee.”
Santana’s relative inexperience as a catcher factored into that choice.
“I haven’t been catching that long. I started before my freshman year,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve learned a lot more about it and how detailed it is. It’s the most important position on the field, so you have to know all of those little things.”
Santana’s talent is obvious, at least to Corn Dogs manager Justin Huisman, who had plenty of positive things to say about him despite seeing him in the lineup just five times.
“He’s got a big catcher’s body, and you can see the athleticism he has in there,” Huisman said. “He really got into a couple of balls with his swings, so you can see the potential in his ability.”
But Huisman, whose playing career included 25 innings with the Kansas City Royals in 2004, also knows there are numerous details that Santana will need to master to thrive at a Division I program. Huisman mentioned pitch framing as an example.
“It’s one of those things that’s such a huge factor that doesn’t get talked about a lot,” Huisman said. “And if you can’t frame them at 80 miles per hour, it’ll be really hard when they start coming in at 96.”
Santana is already studying details like that. One specific focus of his summer work has been his overall technique on throws to second base.
“My arm strength isn’t where I want it, but I made up for it with my quickness,” he said. “I don’t throw consistently, and sometimes I’d miss my target by going too fast. If I can get that arm speed up to where it was and combine that with my quickness, I’ll be in a good spot.”
In the short term, Santana is looking forward to a healthy return to the Corn Dogs lineup.
“It’s my first time playing baseball at this level,” he said. “So I’ve met some of the older guys and learned from them. Hopefully I can get some more at-bats from higher-level pitching than high school and overall just have fun.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.