Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)
All of the head-turning starts from Jonathan Sanchez this season were gravy, because nobody really knew what to expect from the 25-year-old left-hander. His first sustained lull of 2008, while disappointing, could have been predicted.
Sanchez tumbled to his season nadir Friday night with his shortest start of the year. Arizona clobbered him for five runs in the second inning and six runs in 22/3 innings on the way to a 10-2 victory that elevated the first-place Diamondbacks to .500, making the National League West that much less of a punch line.
The result was a huge letdown for the faithful in the aftermath of a three-game sweep against Washington. The Diamondbacks might not be Hercules as division leaders go, but they are not the Nationals either.
After knocking out Sanchez, they completed the rout with back-to-back homers in the seventh by Mark Reynolds and Chad Tracy, producing the first four major-league runs against Geno Espineli.
All of that amounted to overkill for Dan Haren, who has ridden a fantastic wave of pitching since the Giants beat him May 27 and cruised to his 10th win. He allowed two runs on nine hits in eight innings to capture a game the Giants, still clinging to playoff hopes, hoped to have.
"It was a big game," Rich Aurilia said. "When you lose a game 10-2, it means we didn't score runs, we walked too many people, threw a lot of pitches. That's what happened. We've got tough ones (today) and Sunday, too, (against Brandon Webb and Randy Johnson). You just try and put this behind you and win (today's) game."
The biggest plus for the Giants was the combined five shutout innings and eight strikeouts by rookie relievers Osiris Matos, Sergio Romo and Alex Hinshaw. Jose Castillo and Fred Lewis had RBI hits.
After a 5-1 June raised Sanchez's record to 8-4, he is 0-2 with an 8.47 ERA in four July starts. The Giants have lost all four.
In fairness to Sanchez, a pair of potential inning-ending double plays that could not be turned wounded him in the five-run inning. But make no mistake, he is not as right as he was a month ago. His command is shakier and that sneaky fastball that helped him reach 125 strikeouts has been a little more solvable the last few games.
Stephen Drew and Chris Young could attest to that after hitting consecutive two-run doubles in the second. That happened after Chris Snyder hit a two-hopper that looked like a double play off the bat but shot past Aurilia's backhand into left field for a single after taking an odd spin toward Aurilia's body; and after Chris Burke barely beat the relay on another possible double-play ball.
After that, though, Sanchez walked Haren ahead of the two killer doubles.
"I was out of my mind," Sanchez said, still angry with himself for that walk. "I wasn't focused after those plays and just got frustrated. I was just throwing the ball. I wasn't pitching."
Sanchez is laboring to get through innings, too. When manager Bruce Bochy finally got him in the third inning, he had thrown 81 pitches.
All of which raises the question whether Sanchez is feeling the effects of all the innings he has thrown in his first full year as a major-league starter after yo-yoing between the bullpen and rotation the last two years.
Between the majors and minors, he pitched 95 innings in 2006 and just over 75 last year. Already this year he has thrown 119, approaching his career high of 1252/3 from his 2005 season in Class A Augusta, Ga.
Sanchez does not believe he has that affliction called "dead-arm," saying, "I feel fine. I threw 93, 94 in the first two innings."
Bochy concurred, saying, "Actually, I thought he had good stuff. He was pitching so well. He's going to have his off days. He had some rest after the All-Star break. He has worked hard the last couple of games, but he does feel fine."
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