Faces on the Field: Gaby Sanchez
No one in baseball had a hotter start to the 2006 season than Sanchez, who plays first base and occasionally catches for the Greensboro Grasshoppers, the Florida Marlins' Class A affiliate in the South Atlantic League.
And no one had a more dramatic one. Picture this: On Opening Night, in his team's 11-7 victory against the visiting Hagerstown Suns (Mets), Sanchez blasts a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to snap a 7-7 tie and lift his club to the win.
The next night: One out in the bottom of the ninth, trailing 6-5, bases loaded, one out. Sanchez hits a grand slam for the walk-off 9-6 win.
The next night: Bottom of the ninth once again, one on and one out with Greensboro trailing, 7-6. Sanchez steps to the plate and knocks the first pitch he sees out of the park for yet another walk-off homer.
So is it any surprise that on Sunday, the last game of that series, Sanchez drew four walks?
Well, Sanchez admits he was a little surprised.
"Because it was so early in the season I thought they'd still try to come and challenge me, but then I realized it might be a game where I wasn't swinging the bat much," said Sanchez, who had six homers and 16 RBIs in the first 10 games of the 'Hoppers' 140-game schedule. "I'm guessing they were thinking, 'Let's not let him beat us, let's let the people around him beat us,' but the people around me are just as good, so we have a lot of weapons."
Through the first month of the season, the Grasshoppers were in a heated battle for dominance in a loaded South Atlantic League that saw four teams, including Greensboro, tied for first among the eight teams in the league's Northern Division.
Sanchez was a large part of the reason for that. Opposing pitchers had already taken note. Through May 8, he was still batting a pretty torrid .336, with seven homers and 24 RBIs but had not hit a home run since April 16.
"They're being careful, and he's not getting great pitches to hit with runners on base," said Grasshoppers manager Brandon Hyde. "When you look up and see his stats and see him in batting practice and see how he hits, you're not going to be stupid about it."
But Hyde doesn't think that Sanchez's early power was a fluke, either.
"He's a really good hitter who has unbelievable plate discipline and serious power," said Hyde. "It's not an all-or-nothing thing. He's big and strong and knows how to hit.
Sanchez, meanwhile, is not letting the power outage or the change in pitching approach affect him.
"I see pitchers going after me a lot more, painting in, painting away, throwing me more offspeed pitches," said the 6-2, 225-pound right-handed hitter. "But they're trying to get me out like always, and I'm trying to hit them hard like always."
Sanchez's numbers are not completely out of left field, so to speak. Last year, in his pro debut, he won the New York-Penn League batting title with short-season Jamestown, batting .355 with five home runs, 42 RBIs, 16 doubles and a surprising 11 steals. He also won MVP honors at the league's inaugural All-Star Game in August when he ripped a two-run single during a key four-run inning in the NL's 5-4 victory over its AL counterparts.
But what made his 2005 season all the more remarkable is what you don't see in the stats: the fact that it was his first taste of competitive baseball in more than a year. And in an odd way that fact may be a large reason for his recent success.
Born and bred in Miami, the child of Cuban émigrés, Sanchez had his childhood dream come true when he got a scholarship to play baseball for the University of Miami.
After a successful first two years for the Hurricanes, though, he was suspended for his junior season for reasons which have never been made public but which were explained as "violation of university policy."
Whatever transgression Sanchez committed, it was not considered heinous enough to keep him off the field or away from the team. He worked out with the team, took batting practice with them and sat on the bench during the games, albeit without his 'Canes uniform top.
It was also not enough for the Marlins, who clearly did their homework, to keep from drafting him in the fourth round that spring.
During his suspension, anxious to contribute to the team in ways other than his batting, the third baseman strapped on the shinguards and became the squad's bullpen catcher. That addition to his resume no doubt made him an even more valuable commodity.
"I just tried to keep a positive mindset to show people it wasn't going to bring me down," said Sanchez, who has caught in five games for the Grasshoppers this season while working on the trade with manager Hyde, himself a former catcher. "I just wanted to help out the team because we only had two catchers and didn't want the starting catcher to catch bullpens and get tired."
But while he was staying sharp for the draft and keeping himself in that picture, he was also undergoing an epiphany about his baseball career.
"Baseball was my life, it's what I love, so to be with a team and not be able to contribute more hurt a lot," he said. "So I went to Jamestown having something to prove, wanting to show the Marlins that they hadn't made a mistake."
Whatever nightlife the New York-Penn League road or downtown Jamestown had to offer, Sanchez was having none of it. He'd go home every night after the game, get up the next morning and go to the ballpark to hit the batting cage.
"Basically, I was either at my apartment or at the field," he said, "concentrating on baseball the entire time."
While Sanchez probably doesn't yet project as a full-time catcher, Hyde has been impressed with his work in his limited time behind the plate. He's also playing first base, another new position for him, so for now at least Sanchez's offense is way ahead of his defense.
But he's taken to the concept of catching with a passion.
"You're in control of the game, and I like being able to call the pitches and try to understand what the hitter is trying to do," he said.
That doesn't mean he's taking it a step further and trying to use that mindset when he is at the plate himself, however.
"If I started thinking about how a pitcher was going to pitch me, I'd be in trouble," Sanchez laughed. "I just go in and say, 'See the ball, hit the ball'."
He's been seeing the ball as well as he's been hitting it. Sanchez is not your prototypical free-swinging cleanup hitter. He adds a fine eye to that bat and was the fifth-hardest player to strike out in the New York-Penn League last year (24 in 234 at-bats), while this year he'd walked 11 times and struck out the same amount.
But most of all, he's seeing his future more clearly.
"Not playing when my friends were made me realize I can't do anything else but play this game," Sanchez said. "It's my life. It's what I need to do."
Lisa Winston is a reporter for MLB.com.