When the Seattle Mariners traded two prospects to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for first baseman Carlos Santana, the move was met with more “meh” reactions than “wow.”
Santana, currently 36 years old, is a declining asset who owns a .224/.356/.337 line and a .693 OPS this year.
However, it’s hard to deny he can still get on base at a really high clip.
And, additionally, he has become the M’s lucky charm for those who believe.
Seattle has lost just one game since Santana arrived to town.
“The Seattle Mariners are 8-1 with Carlos Santana,” Walktana Counter, a Twitter account that follows Santana (‘Walktana” makes a reference to his good eye at the plate) wrote on Friday.
The Seattle Mariners are 8-1 with Carlos Santana.
— Walktana Counter (@walktana) July 8, 2022
Santana Has Brought On-Base Skills And Good Fortune
The Mariners won’t play at that pace for the remainder of the season, but it does seem bringing in Santana has helped them in more than one way.
Luck is a tricky concept, but when you play that many games and rarely lose, you tend to find that thing that helped fuel the winning streak, the one that changed the whole picture.
The Mariners have apparently found that in Santana.
In all seriousness, the veteran first baseman is still not hitting for power, but has performed very well since landing in Seattle.
With the Mariners, he owns a .276/.400/.310 line with a .710 OPS: certainly an improvement over what he was doing in Kansas City.
That .400 on-base percentage is looking nice.
Even if he keeps it in the .360, .370 range, Santana could help the Mariners in their quest for the postseason.
Expectations in the power department should be low, but as long as the Mariners keep winning, Santana will be seen as their lucky charm.
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