Sanchez has 'a little bad luck' in Tigers' loss to Royals

DETROIT -- It's been a weird season so far for Anibal Sanchez.

After Saturday's 6-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals, Sanchez is 2-4 and has a 5.44 ERA in seven starts.

This is the same Sanchez who had the AL ERA title at 2.57 just two seasons ago.

It's also the same Sanchez who has only had an ERA over 4.00 twice in his career, in 2007 when he had a 4.80 ERA in six starts with the Florida Marlins and in 2008 when he had a 5.57 ERA in 10 starts with the Marlins.

But both of those seasons were marred by injury.

In 2007, Sanchez was limited to those six starts because of right shoulder tendinitis.

In 2008, Sanchez made just 10 starts after starting the season on the disabled list with a right shoulder labrum tear.

But by all accounts, Sanchez is perfectly healthy right now.

He's also had some bad luck, which showed up on the very first pitch of the game, a fastball that Alcides Escobar hit out of the ballpark.

"The first pitch of the game was kind of the tell-tale sign," catcher James McCann said. "He throws a fastball up at a guy's chin and he tomahawks it out of the ballpark."

Sanchez said the pitch was nowhere near being in the strike zone.

"The first pitch for Escobar I think is way high," Sanchez said. "It's not like a good pitch. It's a ball pitch. He's just jumping at that fastball. He just gets good contact and that's why he got a homer."

It was Escobar's first career leadoff home run, his first home run of the season and his first home run since Sept. 17, 2014 against Chicago's Chris Sale.

Sanchez broke Escobar's bat in the second inning, but the blooper went into left for an RBI single. 

Sanchez broke Christian Colon's bat in the third, but that also ended as a bloop single.

"He was up early, they hit some balls hard, and then actually they hit some balls not so hard that found places to go, certainly helped extend their lead," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said.

Sanchez agreed that his location wasn't perfect, but it wasn't horrible either.

"Today it's kind of like a weird day when you make a good pitch and a lot of ground balls, a lot of pitch find the holes," Sanchez said. "Sometimes you throw good pitch and it's a homer and other times you got bad stuff and you throw a complete game. I know I need to keep working and just get ready for my next one."

After the Royals scored six runs (five earned) in the first four innings, Sanchez came back with two straight 1-2-3 innings in the fifth and sixth.

"They were really aggressive early on and we just mixed it up a little bit better," McCann said. "They were very aggressive with the fastball and that's kind of how they are as a team. We did a better job of mixing it up and changing the look."

The Tigers placed veteran catcher Alex Avila on the 15-day disabled list with a loose body in his left knee before Saturday's game.

That means that Sanchez and the other pitchers will have to rely on McCann and backup Bryan Holaday until Avila returns.

But Sanchez said he had no problem with McCann.

"I don't got a complaint about him," Sanchez said. "I think McCann called a great game today, he's a good friend for me. It's nothing like the pitcher or catcher or something like that. I think it's like a little bad luck today."

Meanwhile, it was the reverse for Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie, who has had trouble against the Tigers in the past.

But Guthrie only allowed two runs on eight hits while walking one and striking out three in 7 1/3 innings.

"He used both sides of the plate well," Ausmus said. "He's sneaky with his fastball, but he stayed out of the heart of the plate. He was kind of the opposite (of Sanchez). He wasn't up. He was on the edges of the plate."

It's still pretty early so it's a smaller sample size for Sanchez compared to an entire season of work.

"I think right now I got a bad game against Chicago, so that kind of hurt, especially when you got just a few innings," said Sanchez, who gave up nine runs on nine hits to the White Sox in 3 1/3 innings April 18. "You see when you got 150, 180, everything changes. But right now the numbers are not the right thing.

"The only thing that I can control is keep working and get ready for my next one."

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