“He threw three pitches for strikes, got ahead and he was great.”

Walks have often been a problem for the hard-throwing Santana with the Drillers, but not this time as he only gave up two free passes. He threw 72 of his career-high 100 pitches for strikes.

It was a much different result for Santana than in his last Midwest League playoff appearance last year when he gave up five runs in one-third of an inning.

“He was awesome, he was lights out from the beginning,” said Drillers catcher Garrett Kennedy, who has been Santana’s batterymate for three teams over the past two seasons. “He was aggressive and in the strike zone. He was able to attack, which made him very successful.”

Kennedy said it was the best that Santana has thrown for Tulsa, but “earlier this year when I had him in Rancho, he was dominant as well, so it was nice for him to pitch like that in such a big game for us.”

Santana set the tone by retiring the first six batters, the last five on strikeouts. The Naturals, who won the North the previous two years, only had runners in scoring position once against him, and that came in the sixth after a strikeout-wild pitch. But Santana retired cleanup hitter Ryan O’Hearn on a grounder to strand runners at second and third.