After strong finish to 2019, Sánchez seeks fast start to 2020

JUPITER, Fla. - It's easy to forget now, because - like the Nationals as a whole - Aníbal Sánchez was so good from late May through late October. But you may recall that the veteran right-hander's first six weeks with the club were an abject disaster.

When he took the mound on May 16 to face the Mets, Sánchez was 0-6 with a 5.27 ERA. He had allowed 69 batters to reach base in only 41 innings. A skeptic would've called his signing (two years for $19 million) a massive fail by general manager Mike Rizzo.

Sanchez-Deals-at-SF-Gray-Sidebar.jpgBut then Sánchez suffered a mild hamstring strain, and though it sidelined him only two weeks, it presented just enough down time for him to reset his mind and his pitching mechanics. And when he returned, he never looked back.

Over his final 21 starts of the regular season, Sánchez went 11-2 with a 3.42 ERA. He barely allowed more than one batter per inning to reach base. He had two legit no-hit bids, plus another start when he retired 20 batters in succession.

And all of that came before the postseason, when Sánchez again dazzled a national audience with a deep no-hit bid against the Cardinals in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series.

So as the righty - two days shy of his 36th birthday - prepares himself for the coming season, he is keenly aware of the disparity in his 2019 campaign and the desire to be much better at the outset this time around.

"Definitely, I want to start the way that I finished," he said. "Right now, I'm working hard to do that."

Sánchez took the first step in that direction today when he took the mound for the first time against an opposing lineup and tossed two effective innings during the Nationals' 9-6 exhibition win over the Cardinals.

That one run had to be manufactured by St. Louis, which got a leadoff double from Kolten Wong in the bottom of the first but then a pair of productive outs to take a 1-0 lead. Otherwise, Sánchez cruised along, throwing 18 of his 25 pitches for strikes.

"I don't want to be the hero today. I just want to be able to throw a lot of strikes," he said. "I want to just command every pitch."

It's actually a good way to describe Sánchez's mindset anytime he takes the mound. While Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin draw all the eyeballs, Sánchez just quietly gets the job done.

He's been doing it for a decade and a half, but over time he's had to learn new ways to do it. Possessor of a mid-90s fastball when he first came onto the scene with the then-Florida Marlins, he's now a master of the widest assortment of pitches in baseball.

"He knows who he is now," manager Davey Martinez said. "Back then, obviously, he threw a lot harder. He understands how to pitch now."

Martinez even suggested this morning that Sánchez is working on adding an entirely new pitch to his seven-deep repertoire that officially includes a fastball, a sinker, a cutter, a slider, a curveball, a changeup and another, slower changeup he affectionately calls "La Mariposa" ("The Butterfly").

So what's this new, still-unnamed pitch Sánchez allegedly is now working on? Sánchez laughed it off and insisted it's not true, he doesn't have enough fingers on his right hand to come up with yet another way to grip a baseball.

No, his focus this spring is on maintaining perfect mechanics, making sure his front shoulder doesn't fly open and his head stays aligned with the rest of his body before he delivers a pitch. That combination allows him to keep the ball down in the zone and induce the kind of weak contact he requires to be successful without the high strikeout totals his rotation-mates can rack up.

In that respect, today was a good day for Sánchez. The first of what he hopes are many good days this spring, this summer and this fall.

"It's the first day," he said. "Everything starts working from that."

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