How Tony Santillan got back on track

The three-second clip popped up randomly on Tony Santillan’s screen recently.

“It was myself from a couple of years ago,” Santillan said. “I saw it as it was. A three-second clip. I noticed something immediately.”

In that clip, he was reminded of what it looks like when he’s firing on all cylinders. He only watched the clip once but immediately picked up on the exact cues that he needed.

“I didn’t rewind it,” Santillan said. “(I thought), ‘I’ll try to do that.’ I know what it is. I worked on it, and it synced up everything.”

Since he watched that clip, Tony Santillan has looked a lot more like Tony Santillan.

He hasn’t allowed a run over his last six appearances, and he also hasn’t walked a batter during that stretch. On Tuesday, as he closed out a 5-3 win over the Mets, Santillan looked the best he has all season.

“I’ve been feeling really good about myself over the last week and a half or so,” Santillan said. “I never lost my believe in who I know I am.”

Just 11 days ago, Santillan was in the middle of the worst rut he had been in in years. He was in the middle of a month where he allowed 13 runs and seven homers across 8 ⅓ combined innings. Following a blown save in early June against the Kansas City Royals, Francona met with Santillan before the Reds’ next game.

“It was him trying to remind me that I’m a big part of what we want to do to get where we want to be,” Santillan said about his meeting with Francona on June 5. ‘He trusts me and believed I’d figure it out. I knew that, too. I knew I’d figure it out.”

It wasn’t just talk. On June 6, Santillan was warming up to pitch in a late-game high-leverage situation before Sam Moll gave up the lead. The same thing happened the following day, and Santillan warming up in those moments reinforced that Francona was going to keep giving him the ball in critical situations.

“We can’t run from every guy that struggles,” Francona said. “If we do, we’ll never be the team we want to be.”

While Santillan ended up pitching with the Reds trailing in those two games in St. Louis, he pitched well and gained confidence. On June 9, he got three huge outs in a two-run win over the Padres. That appearance was Santillan’s third appearance in four games, and typically pitchers don’t throw four times in five days. Santillan made a point to make himself available for the series finale in San Diego.

“I went in (and said), ‘I feel good. I can go. I’ll let you know when I’m down. I’ll be honest with you. I’m good to go,’” Santillan said.

“I know we were hurting back there. I knew if I was good to go, I’d be a good helping hand that day.”

Francona was impressed.

“He was feeling better about himself to the point where he had thrown three out of four in San Diego and said he was ready to pitch (the next day),” Francona said.

The momentum carried over into this homestand as he earned a save on Saturday against the Diamondbacks. The adjustments that he had been working on and the feedback that the three-second clip gave him were really starting to click.

“I’ve been working on several things,” Santillan said. “A couple of days ago, I told the guys in the bullpen in practice that it was the first time that everything I’ve worked on synced up in one bullpen. It felt different. I wasn’t thinking step A, B, C. Everything all synced up at once.”

Up until recently, the story of Santillan’s season was this: His slider was terrific early in the season, and he was effective without the best version of his fastball. When he made an adjustment to strengthen his fastball, he lost feel for the slider. For the entire year, both pitches were never clicking at the same time.

On Tuesday in the win over the Mets, Santillan looked like he had the best version of his fastball as well as the best version of his slider.

“I’ve done the work,” Santillan said. “You believe and trust that it’s going to translate into the game, accept what the results are and be more free. Just trust that what I’ve done will translate. I truly believe that. I’ve been more relaxed and free.”

The swings from Mets hitters said it all. Santillan struck out Bo Bichette with two sliders that spun him all the way around. Then, Santillan made Juan Soto whiff at a 96.6 mph fastball.

Santillan’s average fastball velocity was up 1.8 mph on Tuesday, and his average slider velocity was up 1.6 mph. Which pitch was better for Santillan on Tuesday, the fastball or the slider?

“They were both really good, 1A and 1B,” Santillan said. “They were very aggressive, very sharp.”

In Soto’s at-bat, Santillan threw a two-strike fastball that was 96.9 mph — the fastest pitch that Santillan has thrown all season. Soto fouled it off, and then he reached base on a swinging bunt. Santillan wasn’t phased by the fact that the tying run was up at the plate. He got whiffs on a slider followed by a fastball to punch out Eric Wagaman, and then Santillan ended the game by getting AJ Ewing to ground out on a 96.6 mph fastball — tied for the fourth-fastest pitch Santillan has thrown all season.

“I thought he was really good,” Francona said. “He’s such a competitor, and he cares so much. He’s figuring it out.”