Carlos Santana has seen huge late-season pitching injuries before ... and his team made the World Series

In the late stages of 2016, Cleveland, a team with designated hitter Carlos Santana in the leadoff role, was under siege from pitching-staff injuries.

First it was Danny Salazar, an all-star that season who left an early September start with a strained elbow and only pitched in a limited capacity in the postseason. Then, it was Carlos Carrasco, hit in the hand with a line drive Sept. 17 that ended his season. In the midst of the American League Championship Series, Trevor Bauer suffered a laceration on his pinkie while trying to repair a drone. He had to leave his Game 3 start after 21 pitches as his finger bled, and he struggled in the World Series.

The team's starting pitching was regarded as a major strength, but by the time the 94-win squad reached the World Series, it had been reduced to former Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber and a series of question marks. But reach the World Series it did, finishing a run shy of the championship in an 8-7 extra-inning loss to the Chicago Cubs in Game 7.

Santana, entering his sixth postseason and now with the Milwaukee Brewers, had a hand in Cleveland weathering that storm, hitting two homers in the ALCS win over the Blue Jays. Though Cleveland's offense was solid in its own right, the team still won three one-run games and a pair of two-run games in the seven wins it needed to reach the Fall Classic.

Can the veteran lend a hand again to a team that heads into the postseason reeling from the loss of a star pitcher in injured Brandon Woodruff? What about Josh Donaldson, who joined Santana in the starting lineup for Game 1 of the wild-card series in Milwaukee against Arizona on Tuesday?

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"In 2016, we definitely lost a few pitchers right before the pitchers, and now we lost one of the best pitchers in the league," Santana said Tuesday via interpreter Carlos Brizuela. "Obviously, that hurts, but you've just got to stay positive. You have to look forward. Things happen for a reason, God makes things happen for a reason, so you just have to … stay connected and just try and go forward and do the best you can to help the guys around you."

The switch-hitting first baseman was brought to Milwaukee to improve the team's subpar offense, and for the most part, he's done that. In 52 games since coming over from Pittsburgh, he had a .773 OPS (109 OPS-plus indicating 9% better than league average), with 11 homers after just 12 in his first 94 games of the season with the Pirates.

One of those was a home run against the Brewers in late June, so when he delivered a walk-off double on the final Friday of the season, he registered the rare distinction of a walk-off hit for and against a team in the same season.

But during his matchups with the Brewers, he apparently noticed some promise in the team across the way.

"When we were playing the Pirates earlier in the year, he told me a few times how great the energy we had, how he would love to come over here," said Brewers catcher William Contreras. "I went to (Eduardo) Brizuela (special assistant to the general manager) and some of the front office and told them, hey, if we need a first baseman, he wants to come here."

Contreras, who debuted in the big leagues a decade after Santana did, has been one of the players benefiting from Santana's midseason arrival via trade with the Pirates.

"He's a veteran who's been around, who understands the game, and gives a lot of advice not only to me, but to a lot of the young guys," Contreras said. "He's a guy who works hard and works a lot, just like me. I like to work hard, too. So I'm able to grab him and go work, go hit in the cages for a while. … Whether he's having a good day or a bad day, you can't tell, because he's staying positive, working hard, always trying to help everyone around him."

Going back to 2016, the team Cleveland beat in the ALCS that year, Toronto, featured another new Brewers late-season addition: Donaldson.

Released by the Yankees and signed just before September, Donaldson entered the postseason as the team's elder statesman, five months older than Santana. This is postseason No. 9 for Donaldson, who has a .732 OPS in playoff games, with a .335 on-base percentage, five homers and 16 RBI. He's never been the World Series but as made a championship series three times.

He singled in the 11th inning of the 2016 wild-card game, setting up a three-run homer to win the game by Edwin Encarnacion. He doubled and scored the winning run in the 10th of the ALDS clincher against Texas that same season.

Santana's playoff numbers aren't staggering on offense, but he did have five hits last year with Seattle in 24 plate appearances, and three were for extra bases. Overall, mostly with Cleveland, he has a .681 OPS and .300 on-base percentage in 28 postseason games. The 2016 season was his lone trip to the championship series and World Series.

"I'm very lucky to be able to experience a lot of playoffs," Santana said. "What I tell younger guys like William and some of the rookies, the game doesn't change. At the end of the day, it's the same game where you go out there. There's just more cameras, more media, they notice everything you do a little bit more. But at the end, you've got to play the same game you've been playing all year. You have to calm down. There's going to be a lot of emotions on the field and off the field. Being able to control those emotions is a big part of it."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers look to use Carlos Santana, Josh Donaldson playoff experience