Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Dirty Sanchez is back!

The Mets game just ended, and it was full of great individual performances. Pelfrey pitched 7 scoreless innings, Reyes had 4 hits including a triple and double, Wright had 5 RBIs including a 2-run homer in the first inning. But the biggest thing about tonight's game in my opinion was the man who pitched the 9th inning for the Mets: Duaner Sanchez. It was his first Major League appearance since his taxi cab accident in Miami back on July 30, 2006. I didn't get to see it, but the radio announcers said his slider seemed sharp and his fastball had good velocity. But we all know Duaner's go-to-pitch is the change, and he seemed to be missing his spot with that. But that will come. Overall, Sanchez pitched 1.0 inning, gave up a ground ball single up the middle, struck out a batter, and induced two ground ball outs. A strong outing.

I know I'm a Heilman-hater, but I'll mention here that he pitched a scoreless 8th inning, despite giving up a double.

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More on Duaner Sanchez, I just want to include a story here. I've already written the story of how Xavier Nady learned he had been traded after Sanchez's injury created a need for a relief pitcher. As clueless as Nady was that him being traded was a possibility, the rest of the Mets may have been even more shocked. Apparently, Nady was in the hotel lobby on July 31 and preparing to leave to join the Pirates. A bunch of the Mets players were set to go out to dinner and just assumed that X-Man would either join them or be going out on his own. It was then that Nady told them all he had been traded to Pittsburgh. He also told them at this time about Duaner Sanchez's car accident and injury, which the players seemingly didn't know about before. Needless to say, the collection of Mets players was speechless. Nady was an extremely popular player among both his teammates and the fans, and obviously everybody recognized how critical Sanchez was to the team's success.

With Sanchez returning, it's an appropriate time to look back. Aaron Heilman, Guillermo Mota (yes, that steroid-using, lead-blowing @$$****), and Roberto Hernandez all tried to fill Sanchez's role, and none were particularly successful in the end (i.e. the playoffs [Yadier Molina? Are you kidding me, Heilman?]). Heilman is still blowing leads for the Mets, so not much has changed there. Mota was sent to the Brewers in a form of addition-by-subtraction, since the player the Mets received in return, Johnny Estrada, was released just a couple weeks later. Roberto Hernandez went to the Indians to start 2007, but was released by them on June 20 of that year, and signed onto a minor-league deal with the Dodgers. He struggled through a stretch with the Major League club, and is currently a free agent at 43 years old. Xavier Nady is now the main offensive threat of the Pittsburgh Pirates (or a close second to Jason Bay), and still a very popular player (not to mention an early winner of the Non-Mets Player Mets Player of the Day Award here on this site).

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