Milwaukee Brewers: Is Domingo Santana About to Break Out?

After every game, fans should always try to come away with a positive outlook.  With Sunday’s series finale against the Chicago Cubs, we obviously see that the Milwaukee Brewers are still a work in progress.  Even though the game started out ugly for the hometown team, we all saw a few positives to build on.  One example took place in the ninth inning when Domingo Santana showed that a hot streak may be on the horizon.

You may be thinking you read that wrong, “Hot streak?” As we all know Santana has been a bit of a streaky hitter throughout his short career with the Milwaukee Brewers, but once he gets his first homer out of the way, we can expect him to go on a tear.

Looking for more proof? No problem. Check out at the last month of the 2016 season.  Santana, who missed almost all of last season due to multiple injuries, flashed prodigious power in the month of September.

In the final stretch of games, he showed what he could do when healthy.  He slashed an impressive .307/.358/.568 with five homers, 15 RBIs, and had 27 hits. This all with only eighty-eight at bats to do it in. If you need a comparison, in April of 2016 he had eighty at-bats and batted .250/.341/.413 with two home runs, nine RBIs, and 20 hits.

To be out for consecutive months and be able to get back to what you were doing before going on the DL is a great quality to see in such a young player. This brings me to my point, on Sunday Santana had long at-bat against  Cubs reliever Hector Rondon, which ended in a solo home run on after drawing a full count.

Now that Santana has his first homer of the 2017 season off of his mind, he will settle in and go on a monster hot streak at the plate for the next month and, hopefully, even longer. Remember, prior to the home run on Sunday, he only had one hit on the year, which he got in the first game of the season.

Now that the Brewers head out on the road to the hitter-friendly venues that the Toronto Bluejays and Cincinnati Reds call home, and then end the road trip in Wrigley Field to play the rival Cubs, Santana could end the month with close to 10 or 11 home runs, with a batting average close to .275.

Next: Are The Cubs And Brewers Really Rivals?

It may sound a little crazy to write that one home run can turn the season around for a player, but remember baseball is a weird game that works in mysterious ways for all different players. We’ll revisit this post at the end of April, and see exactly how much a home run at the end of a loss in April meant to Santana.