“It’s not like my command is bad, they’re competitive walks,” Sanchez says. “Don’t get me wrong, there are some four-pitch walks, but being able to throw my curveball for a strike and put out people with my curveball is probably the biggest thing I wanted to work on this year, because I feel like my changeup and my fastball are pretty much there every night.”
“I want people to beat me with my best stuff, that’s everybody’s thought process,” says Sanchez. “Getting cheap hits on my off-speed was frustrating at the beginning, but I understood the big picture. This whole process since I’ve been drafted is looking at the whole big picture and yeah, maybe it’s slower and I still may be in high-A, but there’s been a plan since the day I signed and it’s about sticking to it.”
In past years the curveball has been more of a finishing pitch for Sanchez—an “0-2 hammer punch-out curve,” as he describes it—while this season he incorporated a slower version of it in the 79–84 range that finishes in the zone. The difference, he explains, is in “the release point.”
“I was trying to make it too nasty, and taking a step back, and letting it do the work out front is what’s helped me,” he continues. “It was always a good curveball, I just could never throw it for a strike, so nobody would respect it. They were sitting fastball. Now that I can throw that, it’s getting me through five, six, seven innings.”