On Santos

I'd just like to wax on about (what I assume is) a bunch of people calling for Sergio Santos' head before it really starts.  Yeah, blown saves are irritating, especially after last year's Jon Rauch debacle, but we're four games in to the season.  Let's just remember back to last season, where we had Frank Francisco stinking up the joint for the first two months of the season, before really settling in and being an excellent reliever to finish off the year.  This kind of thing happens, especially with a (relatively, in terms of how long he's been pitching) young, raw pitcher and a potent lineup.  He's going to strike out a shit load of guys, and he'll have his struggles with control; it comes with the territory.  He's also going to have a lot of breaking balls in the dirt, because that slider is goddamn nasty.  Let's give him a while before we shit all over him, no?

Having said all of that, yeah, that sucked.  If this team is going to contend, this is the kind of game that they'll have to win.  Which, I suppose, they did twice in Cleveland, so...  Call me old fashioned, but this is about what I've expected so far, save for maybe a little bit more offense.

I'm glad to see that Colby Rasmus finally showed up.  I really think that he's the guy that we're going to need to have the most patience with, but as long as he can keep that defensive awesomeness up, I'll be just fine with him, and all the offensive contributions will be gravy.

Elsewhere around the league, Ian Kinsler and the Texas Rangers agreed to a 5 year, $75MM contract extension last night.  The deal is for $70MM with an option, and the option comes with a $5MM buyout.  Kinsler only needs to be worth about 13WAR over the course of the contract for the Rangers to break even on this one, and seeing as he's been worth 11 fWAR over the last two seasons, despite missing a bit of time, I think this one is a pretty safe bet.  Excellent work by Jon Daniels here.

Also happening in extensionland last night was a deal between the Indians and Joel Carreno-killer Carlos Santana.  He agreed to a 5 year, $21MM contract, taking up his final five years of team control (and an option for his first year of free agency).  Jonathan Lucroy agreed to a 4 year, $11MM deal with the Brewers recently, and Santana is significantly better offensively.

Yu Darvish disappointed last night, throwing 42 pitches in his first inning, and allowing 4 runs.  He settled down after that, getting in to the 6th inning.  Way to spend wisely!