On a beautiful upper-Midwest Saturday afternoon at Miller Park, Braves pitcher Anibal Sanchez looked like someone who’s been on a job long enough to find a comfort zone where production outshines all reasonable expectations. Where a man’s physical skills are seemingly in decline but his performance better than many of those much younger, those in their primes while he’s well past his.
Experience, guile and a repertoire of well-executed pitches were tools that Sanchez used to pitch five consecutive perfect innings during a 5-1 win that snapped the Braves’ four-game losing streak and the Brewers’ five-game winning streak, and probably left a few Milwaukee fans wondering if this was the same guy who pitched one state over – and one large lake – with the Tigers in recent years.
Sanchez worked 6 2/3 innings and allowed two hits, one run and one walk while striking out eight, including six consecutively. He fired 57 strikes in 82 pitches. He lowered his ERA to 2.72 in 11 games, including 10 starts for the Braves, who signed the 34-year-old to a minor-league contract in the last weeks of spring training only because they were worried about depth because of injuries.
“Anibal’s been fantastic,” said Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman, who broke out of a recent funk with three hits including a double and an RBI triple. “I’ve said it before, he’s a magician with the ball. What he can do with it is pretty remarkable. I mean, he can go from 68 to 93 (mph). It’s pretty special what he’s doing.”
Sanchez earned the decision in each of the Braves’ past two wins, pitching six solid innings in a 5-3 series-opening win at Yankee Stadium on Monday and ending the Braves’ slide with his best start of the season Saturday.
“I feel really good,” said Sanchez, whose current ERA is more than two runs below his best from the past three seasons and would be his lowest since a career-best 2.57 he posted in 2013, when he had 14 wins and 202 strikeouts in 182 innings. “The last two outings that I had against the Yankees and Milwaukee, those are good teams; they’ve got good players and good hitters. I tried to put my best effort into those two outings to bring some wins for the team.”
Staked to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Johan Camargo’s bases-loaded single, Sanchez retired 18 or 19 consecutive batters from the second out of the first inning through the second out of the seventh before walking Hernan Perez. It was 19 if you count the first out of that stretch, when alert right fielder Nick Markakis made a strong throw to second base to cut down Jesus Aguilar chugging from first base on Travis Shaw’s would-be single turned fielder’s choice.
Sanchez struck out Perez to end the first inning with a runner at third and begin one of the better stretches of quintessential crafty pitching that the Braves have seen in some time.
“His command was unbelievable,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It’s like with that guy, every pitch has a purpose. He doesn’t ever throw a pitch where he doesn’t know where he wants to put it. And he was just doing what he does, mixing it up.”
Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson said, “He was tremendous today. And honestly he’s just thrown the ball so well all year.”
Freeman reached back five years to find a comparison for Sanchez doing what he’s done this season.
“Every time Sanchez pitches it reminds me of Freddy Garcia in 2013,” he said, referring to then-36-year-old pitcher who posted a 1.77 ERA in six late-season games with the Braves in his final season in the majors. “He’s a veteran pitcher that knows how to pitch, and every time he goes out there he gives us a chance to win. It’s a great pick-up for us and he’s pitching like it and hopefully we keep him going like that.”
After the first inning Milwaukee didn’t have another runner reach base until Perez walked with two out in the seventh, and Brad Miller followed with a sharp single that caromed off Sanchez’s lower back and squirted past Swanson into left field, scoring Perez to cut the lead to 2-1. A trainer checked on Sanchez and he felt fine, but Snitker decided to bring in reliever Dan Winkler, who induced a comebacker from Tyler Saladino for the third out.
“It’s a situation where they’re seeing him again and again, so I probably would’ve went to Wink anyway,” Snitker said of making the call to replace Sanchez when he did.
The Braves expanded their lead with three runs in the eighth on consecutive RBI triples by Freeman and Markakis after Ozzie Albies’ leadoff single, and a two-out, bases-loaded pinch-hit single from Ryan Flaherty.
When the Braves signed Sanchez late in spring training to a deal potentially worth a modest $1 million, it wasn’t a move met with wide praise. More like rolls of the eyes or shrugs of the shoulders, folks figuring he would be nothing more than a fifth-starter candidate and wouldn’t be long for that role once Luiz Gohara was healthy and stretched out in Triple-A.
But Scott Kazmir was released before the end of spring training, Gohara took longer than expected to get healthy, and Sanchez kept coming up big in most of his starts, first at spring training and then in the regular season.
“It’s fun to play behind him because you can just see how he pitches,” Swanson said. “With how baseball is nowadays it almost feels like it’s old-school pitching. He lives on the edges (of the plate), he mixes his speeds, throws to different quadrants and he keeps everyone engaged. It’s fun to be able to play behind that and see it happen -- just how we got him at spring training and everything. That and he’s just been tremendous.”
Sanchez made one regular-season relief appearance before moving to the rotation, then after two solid starts he pulled a hamstring in mid-April and spent six weeks on the disabled list. Once again there were doubts if Sanchez would pitch again for the Braves, as that DL stint stretched longer than expected.
But when they had a need again and he was ready, he stepped back into the rotation and picked up where he left off. The Braves have won seven of his past nine starts, and Sanchez has a 2.59 ERA in his past seven starts, allowing two earned runs or fewer in five of those seven games and working six or more innings in four.
“People keep asking me, and it’s so much more than I was told (to expect from Sanchez) coming in,” Snitker said. “The guy’s what I remembered him being (before the past three years). It’s great. I mean, he’s just been really, really good.”
To recap, Sanchez is a 13-year veteran who was released by the Twins during spring training and signed a minor league deal worth $1 million with the Braves. A guy who just finished a five-year, $80 million deal with the Tigers that started with two good seasons and ended with three bad ones.
He had a 20-30 record 4.67 ERA during the 2015-17 seasons in 88 games, including 68 starts. He gave up an alarming 85 home runs in 415 2/3 innings in that span, including an American League-high 29 homers in 2015, 30 homers in 2016 and 26 homers in 105 1/3 innings in 2017.
But with the Braves, Sanchez is pitching as if rejuvenated. Or as if he’s figured things out. Or both. He’s given up eight homers in 59 2/3 innings, but only two homers in his past five starts, and Saturday he kept the ball in the park against a power-laden Brewers team that came in with the second-most homers in the majors.
Before Saturday, Sanchez had a 6.37 career ERA in eight starts against the Brewers. But on this sunny afternoon with the temperature in the upper 70s, the veteran pitcher looked like a man plying his craft in a manner in which only someone who has done it for a long time can. And doing it for a 50-38 team that probably wouldn’t be where it is today if they hadn’t signed him late in the spring.
“Oh my God, he’s really saved us,” Snitker said. “From the first time that he came into our office in Orlando until now, I had no idea he was going to have this impact on our club. Knew he was capable of it, but I hadn’t seen him in a while. But he’s just way surpassed anything that we thought we’d get out of him, I think. The total being, the total package. He’s such a pro. I mean, you walk down the hall and you see him with a young pitcher and he’s mimicking the guy’s delivery or talking about throwing a pitch or things like that. I mean, he’s really into it. He’s watching guys, he’s pulling for them. Lending all that experience he’s had over the years. I think he’s great for these young pitchers.”
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