Sanabria flirts with perfection for Bandits

In the relatively large dugout at Perfect Game Field on Tuesday night, Carlos Sanabria found a secluded spot during his bid for, well, perfection. But unlike many pitchers in the same situation, he found time to socialize.
"You just have to find with every guy what they need to do in order to stay physically ready and mentally focused to go back out there," Class A Quad Cities pitching coach Drew French said. "He would get up and walk and congratulate teammates when they scored, but for the most part he just sat there by himself and channeled his focus and his attack plans for the next three hitters he was going to face."
The Astros prospect kept his focus in check as he carried a perfect game into the seventh in the River Bandits' 8-2 win at Cedar Rapids. Sanabria ended up allowing two runs on three hits and a walk with seven strikeouts over a career-high 6 2/3 innings.

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"He was able to get some early contact and in the at-bats that went a little deeper in terms of pitch counts, he was able to be really unpredictable, especially 2-2 and 3-2 counts," French said. "He was just making really quality pitches early on in at-bats, so he was able to have two 11-pitch innings, a six-pitch inning and a seven-pitch inning."
Coming off a tough start in which he was dominant until a five-run fifth against Peoria on May 24, Sanabria (1-2) and French had a game plan to avoid a big inning.
"We just focused on fastball command," French said. "We just really tried to have a quality, clean delivery and be able to repeat that delivery with all his pitches and having confidence in lining all those pitches up in the strike zone and just trusting that the movement and his ability to use them in different counts was going to breed some success for him."

Sanabria used that strategy -- and a quiet spot in the dugout -- to retire the first 18 Kernels. The 20-year-old induced six groundouts and seven flyouts to go with the strikeouts, which tied his career high.
"They had a lefty-heavy lineup, so his changeup was really, really effective versus those guys," the pitching coach said, "and just made quality pitches, located fastballs early in the count, had command of his fastball pretty much all night."
French only saw two mistakes by his starter, both of which came as he pitched in the seventh inning for the first time since signing with the Astros in 2014. Ariel Montesino broke up the bid on the first pitch of the frame with a double that center fielder Daz Cameron appeared to "lose in the lights or lose off the bat." While the bid for history was over, the pitching coach felt Sanabria was still perfect.

Jermaine Palacios homered to left on the next pitch and Lewin Diaz doubled to left. French and manager Russ Steinhorn decided they wanted to let the right-hander escape his own jam. Sanabria got two quick outs, but a four-pitch walk to Hank Morrison pushed his pitch count to 82 and ended his outing.

"I shook his hand, I gave him a big hug and I told him good job," French said. "Really great job in executing what our plan was and being able to take his practice this week and do that in the game, which is a lot more difficult than people understand. It just speaks to his intelligence and his ability to take coaching and to take it out there and execute it at a high level."
Sanabria started the season in extended spring training, with the promise of being called up before long. With promotions trickling down, the Venezuela native was among the first to be assigned to Quad Cities.
Reliever Abdiel Saldana got the final out in the seventh to seal Sanabria's first Midwest League win in his first "solo start" following two piggyback outings.
"I think his mentality is, 'I'm just going to take the ball and go until they tell me I'm not going back out there,'" French said.
Astros No. 14 prospectYordan Alvarez and No. 19 prospect Ronnie Dawson each collected three hits, while Osvaldo Duarte, Marcos Almonte and Taylor Jones drove in two runs apiece for the River Bandits.