The Art of Deception

"Most of it was visual, how he handled pressure, how he intermingled with teammates, what happens if an error was made behind him, what happens when somebody gets a home run off him, those types of things," says general manager Ryan. "You could tell he was raised right."

One April night at the Metrodome, Santana is locked in a pitchers' duel with Cleveland's Fausto Carmona, a previously unremarkable pitcher having a career season. The two hurlers work efficiently, and after just 45 minutes, the game enters the fourth inning. Santana quickly gets two outs, then stares down second basemen Mike Rouse.

Santana has already struck out Rouse once tonight, with three fastballs, two clocked at 93 miles an hour and one at 94. But this time, Santana won't rely on power alone.

His first pitch floats over the plate about chest high, a slider that doesn't break. Ball one. Next comes a low slider for a called strike. Then Santana throws a pitch that looks exactly like the first one—same speed, at 83 miles per hour—except that it's called for strike two. Rouse fouls off a 93-mile-per-hour fastball. Then comes the change-up. Rouse lunges as the pitch flutters in at 78 miles per hour, and he's way out ahead. The lefty pulls it foul down the first base line. The next pitch is a devastating slider, 86 miles an hour. Rouse strikes out again.

The series of pitches is vintage Santana, mixing cunning with physical prowess.

"It's more about being aggressive and mixing everything you have, and trusting everything you have," Santana explains. "The key is to make sure everything looks the same when you deliver the ball. That's what I focus on. If you do something different when you throw your fastball versus when you throw your change-up, they'll know."

Bad change-ups are easy to hit; good ones make even the best batters look like bush leaguers. To throw a change-up, pitchers grip the ball with three fingers and a thumb. The idea is to throw with the same motion and arm speed as a fastball, but the grip puts a spin on the ball.

Pitchers don't want to throw too straight. They want to place their pitches in the strike zone, with movement just as the pitch crosses the plate. Lefties, for whatever reason, tend to have more natural movement. Santana has it in spades.

Santana throws a straight change and what's called a circle change, where he holds the ball by making an "okay" sign with his fingers. He learned it during a 2002 stint in the minors from Bobby Cuellar, then the pitching coach for the Twins' Triple-A farm team in Edmonton.

"We moved my index finger from the middle, in between the seams, to the top of the seam," Santana explains, demonstrating in the dugout by bending his calloused left thumb around the side of the baseball. "Then we moved the knuckles—instead of being in between the seams, they're going to be on top of the seams. So it felt like the ball would be in my hand the whole time, and it's not going to be easy to come out. So you can have the same arm speed as a fastball, everything looks the same."

With the new grip, Santana could throw the change-up at roughly 78 miles an hour—12 to 16 miles an hour slower than the fastball the batter is anticipating.

Adding the third pitch—fastball, slider, and now a change-up—to his arsenal turned Santana into one of baseball's most dominant starting pitchers. In the 2003 season, he started 18 games and finished the season 12-3. The next year he went 20-6, throwing a league-leading 265 strikeouts in 228 innings pitched. Opponents' batting average against him was a paltry .192. During one stretch that summer, he won seven straight games. In another, he allowed just two runs in 40 innings. As one hapless opponent later said: "It's like he's reading your mind."

When the season was over and Johan returned to Tovar, he found his parents' doorstep littered with baseballs, caps, and photographs. Each day, Santana dutifully collected the items, signed his autograph, and left the memorabilia outside for the adoring fans to collect.

The attention only grew more intense after he was named the Cy Young award winner in late 2004. Venezuelans stormed his family's house and their church in Tovar. Santana had to go on national television to keep the peace. President Hugo Chavez gave Santana the country's highest medal of honor, and his government provided five security guards for Santana and his parents, brother, three sisters, wife, and baby girl. Such is the price of being a national hero.

Reiner, the scout who discovered him, says that after Santana won his first Cy Young, he called to say he wanted another. When he won a second, Santana called and told Reiner that he wanted to win a third. "It's not the money or the fame," Reiner says. "He wants to be the best, no matter what, and that's how all the greats are."

During an April bullpen session, Santana is giving his catcher fits. One pitch smacks the mitt with such force that the sound reverberates around the Metrodome like a gunshot; others are bobbled or dropped.