Which Santana will show?

Ervin Santana's split personality has the Angels baffled and frustrated.

The young right-hander turned in another poor performance on the road Thursday, allowing eight runs on seven hits (including two home runs) in 3 2/3 innings against the Tigers. Santana now leads the majors in home runs allowed (13).

Most disturbing for the Angels is the dichotomy between his pitching at home and on the road. Santana is 0-5 with a 9.30 ERA in six starts on the road this season. In his career, he is 9-16 with a 6.98 ERA and 34 home runs allowed in 31 starts away from home. At Angel Stadium, he is 22-6 with a 3.00 ERA and 17 home runs allowed in 35 starts.

"I'm trying to do my best every time I go to the mound, home or road," Santana said. "I'm just going to keep pitching and I know one day it's going to turn around."

He might have to keep pitching in Triple-A. The Angels have left-hander Joe Saunders there. Saunders started the season in the Angels' rotation (with Bartolo Colon and Jered Weaver on the disabled list) and went 2-0 with a 1.96 ERA in three starts. He is 2-3 with a 4.30 ERA for Salt Lake since being demoted.

"We need production from all our guys," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said when asked about the possibility of Santana working out his problems in the minors. "This isn't going to be Instructional League for Ervin. ... Our goal right now is to fix him."

Scioscia dismissed the idea of starting Santana only at home -- "that's dysfunctional," he said -- and Scioscia added he did not see Santana's inconsistency as being tied to where the team is playing.

"This right now isn't a home-road issue. This is a consistency issue with Ervin -- consistency from pitch to pitch not start to start," he said. "If he were pitching at Angel Stadium the way he was pitching today, you'd see the same results."