‘Wired’ Sanchez tosses ton of strikes in debut
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Aaron Sanchez said he awoke for his first game in a year and a half “wired and ready to go bright and early” Friday, and the fifthstarter hopeful filled up the strike zone in his debut with the Giants.
Sanchez, a 2016 AllStar who missed last season after shoulder surgery, acknowledged he might have overdone it with the strikes in his 21⁄3 innings of work (which included exiting with one out and two on in the second and reentering for the third). He was ahead of nearly every Cincinnati batter, but had trouble finishing some hitters off, allowing four hits and hitting two, all either on the first pitch or when ahead in the count.
“I was actually really, really pleased,” Sanchez said. “I threw a lot of strikes, almost too many strikes. There were a couple of curveballs that did stay up in the zone when I had a chance to put them away.
“For now, after not being in a game in a year and a half, that was exactly what I wanted to see . ... I’ll take away a lot of pluses, that’s for sure.”
Sanchez was up to 98 mph in a winter workout for teams but Friday, his fastball velocity was about 92 mph, according to the stadium scoreboard. Sanchez said he didn’t know hard hard he was pitching, but he specifically had not wanted to throw too hard his first time out because he didn’t want to throw his delivery out of whack. “I’d rather be in the strike zone and add (velocity) on top of that,” he said.
Sanchez said he has no doubts he’ll be prepared well enough to go when the regular season starts. “The only thing that I need to now get accustomed to more is that atmosphere that I was in tonight,” he said. “Now that I’ve got this first one underneath my belt, we’ll just continue to build off that.”
A scout on hand Friday said he thought Sanchez looked a little tentative and rusty and described his curveball, which in past years has been a major asset for him, as “more of a getmeover pitch that he had trouble landing,” but the scout liked his changeup a lot, saying the pitch was “very deceptive with swingandmiss action.”
⏩ Lefty Scott Kazmir, a threetime AllStar in camp on a minorleague deal trying to make his second career comeback, will get his first start of the spring Sunday against the Dodgers in Glendale.
⏩ The Giants signed lefthander Phil Pfeifer, 28, to a minorleague deal. Pfeifer, like several other Giants (Mike Yastrzemski, Curt Casali, Tyler Beede, Sam Selman), is a Vanderbilt alum. In another roster trend, he’s a former Dodgers farmhand. Pfeifer, who played for Canberra in the Australian pro league two years ago, allowed four hits, two walks and two runs in two innings this spring with Atlanta. The Giants now have 13 lefthanded pitchers in camp, including five nonroster invitees; nine of them are relievers.