Stuff happens for Santana

Ervin Santana has always had a world of talent. What he’s lacked from time to time is any idea of how to apply it.

Take last season. Twelve times Santana went to the mound for the Angels and delivered a quality start; 10 other times he couldn’t make it through six innings.

“It’s a little frustrating when you can see the talent that he showed,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “And all of a sudden he’s out of his mechanics for a long time and couldn’t get back into it.”

Santana appears to be exorcising those demons this season. For proof, look no further than Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Seattle, in which a dominant Santana and reliever Scot Shields dispatched the Mariners in a tidy 2 hours 11 minutes.

“This might have been the best stuff we’ve ever seen him have,” Scioscia said of Santana, who allowed only one run, three hits and no walks in eight innings.

“That was a beautiful thing to watch today,” said Shields, who got the final three outs for his first save in 11 months. “Nothing is ever easy in this game. But he made it look it.”

Seattle Manager John McLaren made it unanimous, saying, “That was as good as I’ve seen him.”

Santana was so overpowering that McLaren said Saturday’s game was the first he can remember in 10 years of managing in which he never put on a sign, because there was no one on base to signal to.

“It was always strike one, strike two,” he said. “We weren’t giving at-bats away. He just had great stuff.”

Santana accepted the praise, then offered an explanation.

“My concentration was, like, the best. The best concentration ever,” he said with a smile. “If you don’t concentrate, you’re not going to locate your fastball or your off-speed [pitches] when you want.

“Tonight everything was great.”

But Santana, who is off to 3-0 start with a 2.67 earned-run average, has been building toward this since last September, when he ended his worst big league season by posting a season-low 2.96 ERA in four starts. He followed that with a brilliant winter -- going 3-1 and giving up six earned runs in 28 1/3 innings for Licey in the Dominican league -- and an unbeaten spring in which he struck out more than three times as many batters as he walked.

“He’s shown that his stuff can play up here in the big leagues in a big way,” Scioscia said. “It’s just the constancy factor of being able to repeat pitches, repeat a delivery. Not only during a game but start after start.”

Santana, who set down 16 batters in a row between Greg Norton’s second-inning double and Adrian Beltre’s seventh-inning homer, got all the offensive support he would need in the fourth when Erick Aybar and Chone Figgins delivered two-out singles off former Angel Jarrod Washburn (1-3), turning a 1-0 lead into 4-0.

Aybar finished with two hits, two RBIs and a run, upping his season average against the Mariners to .474. Figgins’ single extended his hitting streak to 11 games for the division-leading Angels, who have won six of their last seven.

Santana finished off his evening by striking out the last two batters he faced, getting Yuniesky Betancourt on a 94-mph fastball for his eighth strikeout on his 109th and final pitch. And afterward he, too, joined the chorus, calling it his best game -- while adding a caveat.

“I think that’s the one,” he said. “For right now. I don’t remember about other years. I’m living [for] right now so I just have to shut up and keep working hard. And focus. I have to keep it up.”

In the past, of course, that’s been the one challenge he’s had trouble mastering.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com