Your cleanup hitter tonight: Joel Hanrahan

There are some things I'm certain I'll never see, even in the wacky world of minor league baseball.

One is a game-ending triple play. Oh, wait, I saw that in a game between the Wild Things and Kalamazoo a few years ago.

Well, there's always a son of a former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder being called out -- the final out of the game -- for missing home plate after hitting an apparent game-tying home run in extra innings. ... On second thought, I did see that on the Internet. If you don't believe me, then Google "Raul Mondesi Jr." And keep in mind that former Wild Things manager Jeff Isom was the manager for Mondesi's team in that game.

Moving on, I don't think I've ever seen a power outage ... oh, wait, ...never mind.

I guess about the only thing I haven't seen is a manager start his closer at designated hitter and bat him in the cleanup spot. Can you imagine Clint Hurdle starting Jole Hanrahan at DH and batting him in the No. 4 hole? Think that would make people question Hurdle's sanity?

Well, that, in a way, is what Wild Things manager Chris Bando did Friday night when he filled out his lineup card.

Bando started Orlando Santos, who has been sharing Washington's closer's role since the all-star break, at designated hitter and batted him in the cleanup spot against the Southern Illinois Miners.

You read that correctly. Santos batted, and not in the No. 9 spot. He batted cleanup. No. 4. Ahead of five other starters.

Let's keep in mind that Santos isn't your typical relief pitcher. He broke into professional baseball in 2006 as a catcher. He remained a catcher into the 2009 season, when he was converted to pitcher. Santos had a career .244 batting average in three years of rookie ball.

So Santos is a guy with a bit of a hitter's background. But keep in mind, as far as one can tell from researching it on the Internet, Santos didn't have an at-bat in a professional game since 2009. His last at-bat in a game in the United States, when they were keeping statistics, apparently was July 10, 2009 -- more than three years ago.

But there was Santos hitting cleanup Friday night. At first, I thought it was a mistake on the Poinstreak site's live scoring. Had to be a mistake, I thought. The scorekeeper in Marion, Ill., had to have punched the wrong player's number into the computer, right?

But no, Orlando Santos was Washington's cleanup hitter.

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Miners manager Mike Pinto received Washington's lineup and saw a relief pitcher batting cleanup.

But, hey, this shouldn't come as a total shock. After all, pitcher Eric Blackwell has started two games in right field and one at designated hitter, batting No. 6 in the lineup twice and No. 7 once.

Two things keep running through my mind about this:

* Santos got a hit in the game and got better with each at-bat. He struck out with the bases loaded in the first inning. In his second at-bat, Santos hit a nubber in front of the plate on an 0-2 pitch and was thrown out by the catcher. In the sixth inning, he hit a hard line drive to the third baseman, and in the eighth inning he dropped a single into center field.

* What does this say about the other hitters on the team? What are the position players who weren't in the lineup thinking? It had to be something like this: "I can't believe a relief pitcher is batting and I'm not. Am I that bad?" And what does this say about the five guys in the lineup who batted behind Santos? The guy hasn't batted in a pro game in three years and he was batting higher in the lineup than five guys.

There are many hard-to-explain things that have happened with the Wild Things this year. This is just one more. Maybe, a few years from now, we'll be able to say "Remember that time the Wild Things started their closer at DH and used him as the cleanup hitter?"