Tigers' Anibal Sanchez has been unhittable since adjusting his delivery

Sanchez has allowed only two hits in his last 14 innings, including six no-hit innings on Saturday

Spring training stats are mostly useless. We know this. There are many reasons for this, but we don’t really need to get into that now. On the contrary, there are times when they do matter, such as a player coming off major injury or after making a major adjustment. 

On the latter point, we jump off with Tigers pitcher Anibal Sanchez. He fired six no-hit innings on Saturday against the Pirates, and they were playing the likes of Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and Francisco Cervelli. Overall, it wasn’t like a regular-season game, but it wasn’t exactly Sanchez vs. the JV, either. 

If a stand-alone outing, maybe we wouldn’t have noticed. But last time out, Sanchez gave up only two hits in four scoreless innings with five strikeouts and no walks. 

Hmmm ...

The outing before that, Sanchez threw four no-hit innings with five strikeouts and no walks. 

Add it all up, and Sanchez’s last three spring outings have resulted in 14 innings, two hits, zero runs, one walk and 16 strikeouts. 

Now, notice I said something about adjustments? This is from mlive.com on March 13: 

“I’m not going to get into specifics, but he’s trying to make an adjustment in his arm slot,” Ausmus said. “It’s not routine. It’s hard to change arm slots, because it’s so ingrained in your muscle memory. It’s not an easy thing to do. It has to be done repetitively in bullpens, and sometimes it takes a while to translate to games, because when you get back into the game, the adrenaline’s pumping, and you naturally go back to what you’re used to.”

Since then, Sanchez has had three spring outings. You saw the results above. 

I’m officially intrigued. 

At age 33, Sanchez isn’t a spring chicken or anything, but he’s not all the way into age-decline years. Many pitchers find great success in ages 33-35 seasons. This is a guy who led the AL in ERA (2.57) in 2013 and finished fourth in Cy Young voting that very season. He struck out 202 hitters in 182 innings that season. He has the ability to be a frontline starter if everything is working. 

It wasn’t last season, though, as Sanchez had a 5.87 ERA, 1.46 WHIP and coughed up 30 homers in 153 1/3 innings. He led the AL in home runs allowed in 2015 as well. 

Clearly, an adjustment was needed. Perhaps he’s found the proper adjustment, because right now -- again, all spring training caveats apply -- Anibal Sanchez is on fire.