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On Sunday afternoon, the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros played the final contest of a four-game set. While the Tigers had a chance to win the series, they ultimately had to settle for a split as the Astros outslugged them by a score of 10-8.
Making his tenth start of the still-young season, Anibal Sanchez delivered another bizarre outing for the Tigers. Although it was certainly a positive sign that he was able to deliver a season-high 11 strikeouts, he gave up eight hits, seven earned runs and two walks over just 5.2 innings of work. His record remained the same at 3-5, but his ERA and WHIP shot all the way up to 6.12 and 1.33 respectively.
Sanchez also gave up two home runs, both of which came in the sixth inning. Evan Gattis clubbed the first one, and the second homer was a pinch-hit, game-tying three-run blast off the bat of Preston Tucker, who also hit a pinch-hit, game-tying solo homer off of closer Joakim Soria on Thursday.
Granted, Tucker’s home run on Sunday came against Sanchez’s 115th pitch of the afternoon, so perhaps manager Brad Ausmus should have taken him out before then. However, the fact remains that the long ball has been an issue for Sanchez all season long. Considering how successful he has been at keeping the ball in the park in the past, the fact that he has given up 11 home runs already is actually fairly shocking.
After all, Sanchez led all qualified starters in the American League with an 0.45 HR/9 back in 2013, and he allowed only four homers through 126 innings of work last year. Over the past two seasons combined, he had the best HR/9 of any qualified pitcher in MLB, placing ahead of Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright with a mark of 0.38.
Given the trade of Rick Porcello and departure of Max Scherzer over the offseason, many were counting on Sanchez to be an extremely important part of Detroit’s rotation in 2015. Going forward, Sanchez will remain a vital piece of the puzzle, and the Tigers are simply going to need him to figure it out sooner rather than later.
Brad Faber is a Senior Writer and Sabermetrics Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Brad_Faber, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on LinkedIn or Google.
