ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Before Yohan Pino made his big-league debut at the ripe age of 30 last week, Minnesota Twins' general manager Terry Ryan said he had never had a bad start in Triple-A.
Pino's single start in the big leagues, the one he had waited for longer than any other pitcher in baseball, was promising. Although not a factor in the decision, he allowed only two earned runs and struck out seven, showing that he was more than ready for that long-awaited promotion.
That promise is still there but the learning curve may be steeper than anticipated, as he had his first bad start Wednesday night, in a 6-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim.
"They kind of fought off a lot of pitches, fouled off a lot of pitches and gave him some little fits out there," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. "It's a good hitting team with some veterans that know how to do some things. He had a little bit of a rough time."
But the right-hander doesn't necessarily see them as a team of heavy hitters. His mindset is to look at them all the same. Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton are simply Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in the lineup. Pino wasn't daunted at all and it showed in the way he attacked hitters early on. But as the Angels began fouling off his best pitches and his pitch count increased, his location began to waver.
"I don't see the hitters, I just throw the ball and see the inside of the glove," he said. "They are good hitters, I just tried to do my best and I missed a couple pitches up in the zone and they got hit."
The Angels didn't necessarily get any big hits off Pino. But what was discouraging for him was the amount of times he was ahead in the count and failed to get an out. He allowed three earned runs in the second inning and two in the third before being removed after 74 pitches.
"He was ahead of the hitters a lot of times tonight, we just weren't able to finish them off tonight," catcher Eric Fryer said. "Usually he's pretty good at that, whether it's a ground ball or a fly out or even a strikeout but tonight, we were just leaving some pitches out over the plate and wasn't really getting the break on some of the breaking balls with two strikes that we were hoping for and they made us pay."
Fryer said Pino is typically much more adept at reading hitters and this game could just simply be an off night.
"That's been his M.O. pretty much the whole time in Triple-A," Fryer said. "He's always been able to put someone away or even in a big situation he gets out of it. Tonight there was just a couple times he caught a little too much of the plate and they made us play."
It was the second consecutive night a Twins starter failed to work deeper than three innings and it's the first time the team has had a stretch like that this season. A few of Pino's former Rochester teammates seemed primed and ready to be called up but it doesn't appear as though Pino himself plans on going anywhere.
"I don't feel any pressure," he said. "It wasn't very good today. I'm going to keep working. The next start, you hope you do better."
"They don't know him and he doesn't know a lot of these people," Gardenhire said. "So with all the scouting reports out and all of the video and everybody gets to take a look at him, he's not an overpowering pitcher so he has to be really good in the strike zone and in and out, he has to use all of his pitches and tonight they just weren't there.
"We'll see as we go along how he is."
Santana update: Shortstop Danny Santana left the game in the third inning after appearing to injure his left knee rounding first base on a double. He was taken to the Twins' training room for evaluations and will undergo more of them but with an early game Thursday it's unknown what exactly there will be time for.
"He tried to stretch it out and tried to run again and he said he felt it again so they took him in there and checked his knee out thoroughly," Gardenhire said. "We'll see how he is in the morning; that's all we can do."
Santana has no history of knee pain, saying it was the first time in his life he had felt anything in either knee.
