Good Hector Santiago gives Angels breathing room

ANAHEIM >> The Angels welcomed back a good Hector Santiago on Wednesday night.

Santiago, whose up and down season had been mostly down for a month, gave up one run in six iings in the Angels’ 10-2 victory over the Miesota Twins on Wednesday night.

Santiago didn’t give up a hit until the fourth iing and finished his 99-pitch outing giving up just two, a performance the Angels badly needed from any of their starters, particularly him. The Angels had just one quality start in the previous 11 games and Santiago had been responsible for quite a bit of ugliness in the past month.

Since a brilliant eight scoreless iings in Seattle on May 15, Santiago had a 12.18 ERA in his next five starts.

Nearly halfway through the season, Santiago has spent time at both ends of the spectrum, looking dominant to being dominated.

“When he pounds the zone and is aggressive and goes after hitters, he has a good day,” pitching coach Charlie Nagy said before Wednesday’s game. “Then all of the sudden you see him in and out, in and out, using offspeed a little more. He struggles a little more. It’s just getting him to be aggressive and going after it from the get-go as opposed to trying to manipulate things outside of attack guys.”

The other inconsistent part of Santiago’s game has been his velocity. It has ranged from 95-96 mph on good days to 89-90 mph on other days. Santiago has fended off questions about injury on the days his velocity has been down, insisting it’s just a matter of mechanics and command. When he is worried more about throwing strikes, he takes a little off.

On Wednesday, his velocity was down slightly, around 92-93 mph, but he was getting outs. Santiago retired the first nine hitters before giving up a fourth-iing single to Eduardo Nunez.

The Twins didn’t score a run against him until the fifth, when two walks and a bloop single produced a run. He got out of that iing without further damage and by the time he took the mound in the sixth, the Angels had staked him to 7-1 lead.

A five-run fifth iing began with a Yunel Escobar double off the right-field wall, which was the only hard hit of the iing. Albert Pujols and Andrelton Simmons had singles on well-placed ground balls. C.J. Cron blooped a single into center.

The most fortuitous hit of them all was Jett Bandy’s popup, which somehow eluded Max Kepler in right field. Kepler appeared to lose the ball in the lights because it dropped 10 feet from him.

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The Angels finished with 12 hits, including three from Cron, whose playing time had been threatened lately by Marte. The Angels finally tried Marte in left field so they could get both players in the lineup.