Marlins’ Sixto Sanchez had a simple approach to his second spring start. It paid off
It wasn’t the flashiest three innings, but Sixto Sanchez wasn’t looking for flashy.
His goal on Saturday as he made his second spring training start for the Miami Marlins was to hone in on the fundamentals.
Throw strikes. Sequence his pitches. Get simple, easy outs while keeping his pitch count down.
On that front, Saturday was a definite success for the Marlins’ top pitching prospect.
Sanchez retired all nine Washington Nationals hitters he faced at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and needed just 32 pitches to do so.
There were no strikeouts or walks. Three ground balls didn’t even make it to the infield dirt. Only two found their way to the outfield with Starling Marte easily making the plays.
Exactly how the 22-year-old right-hander whose fastball hits triple-digits said he drew it up.
“During this outing, I can say that I was more focused on throwing strikes than actual velocity,” Sanchez said. “Yeah, I pretty much saw the results. I’ve been doing my bullpen sessions, so it was mostly about more about control today.”
Now, Sanchez’s fastballs still had velocity even if on average they were a tick or two lower than usual.
His four-seam fastball sat between 96-98 mph — hitting 100 on the radar gun just twice — while his sinker was between 93-94 (down about 2 mph from last season). His changeup and slider sat between 87-90 mph.
“It’s a normal thing for me to throw some heaters and throw up some high velocity pitches,” Sanchez said, “but I’m concentrating right now on my control and throwing the ball inside the strikes zone.”
The Marlins still have to decide if Sanchez is going to be on the Opening Day roster. Sanchez’s spring training progression was delayed twice, first by a visa issue at the start of camp and then a false positive COVID-19 test result. Manager Don Mattingly said he ideally would want Sanchez ready to throw five innings or about 75 pitches in an outing before having him pitch in a big-league game.
“Obviously he’s behind a little bit,” Mattingly said pregame. “You’re seeing Sandy and those guys, their last outing was five [innings]. Sixto’s at three tonight. But we kind of measure Sixto after the outing. We check what how he’s doing. We’ll see how this one goes tonight and just keep progressing him at a pace that’s healthy. We know we got 162, so exactly where that goes, we don’t know, but we’re going to do what’s best for him as we do with all our guys in making sure they’re ready to compete and ready to go out and that it’s not a spring training outing in the first time out. It’s a regular-season [game] and they need to be ready to compete at that level.”
Mattingly doubled down on that thought process postgame.
“We’re not going to push somebody to start in the first five days of a 162-game season,” Mattingly said. “If Sixto’s ready, then we’re good with it, but if he’s not ready or you can’t get him built in time, then we’ll work it out.”
Sanchez’s thoughts on where he stands with 12 days until the regular season begins?
“I’m very, very happy and grateful to share this rotation with these guys. I keep working really hard and making sure I’m ready to do my job at the beginning of the season.”
This story was originally published March 20, 2021 at 8:32 PM.
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