PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — The specifics of Edgar Santana’s improbable baseball career aren’t especially complicated to retrace, but they are a little hard to believe.
The story started with a skinny 19-year-old who never had played organized baseball being put on a pitcher’s mound in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and instructed to throw hard. The entirety of his baseball education was the four-seam fastball grip he had just been shown.
“I had no idea how to throw,” recalled Santana, now a 25-year-old right-handed reliever on a swift ascent through the Pirates’ minor league system. “My mechanics were a mess.