The crossroads of fate had brought Jonathan Sanchez to a place where he really wasn't supposed to be. The left-hander had pitched badly and last month he lost his spot in the Giants' rotation, replaced by Ryan Sadowski. The word was out that if you were interested in a talented young starter who hadn't blossomed, you could call San Francisco and make a deal for Sanchez, the 26-year-old native of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. His name came up recently in trade conversations between the Giants and Pirates, as it had often come up this year.
But then
Randy Johnson got hurt last weekend, and suddenly Sanchez was needed to fill in -- maybe for just one start, because with a 2-8 record and a 5.30 ERA, a second start is not taken for granted. And yet, as Sanchez walked out to the mound for the eighth inning on Friday night, he was within six outs of becoming the first pitcher to throw a perfect game since Johnson had done so in 2004.
The perfect game was lost on an error by third baseman
Juan Uribe. But Sanchez kept throwing the same sweeping slider that had worked for him so well all night, and the Padres seemed to have no idea how to cope with it, no idea how to attack it, no idea how to respond. Sanchez threw that slider with two outs and two strikes in the eighth, and
Chase Headley swung over the top of it -- only to see the ball veer into him and hit him on the leg. Headley took a tentative step toward first base, as if he had been hit by the pitch, but home plate umpire Brian Runge told him what he already knew, that he had just struck out. Three outs to go.
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Buster Olney
