The Continued Maturation Of the San Francisco Giants' Jonathan Sanchez

The title might look odd following a game that saw Jonathan Sanchez exit after six innings and lose his 11th start of the year.

But you have to forgive the city's infatuation with its starting rotation, quickly becoming the toast of Major League Baseball.

More and more observers are catching on to the fact that the San Francisco Giants' arsenal is more than "just" Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. With Barry Zito rediscovering his virtuoso roots and the subject of this article slowly putting his considerable talents together, the Orange and Black mound is in good hands.

Now, there's a very real possibility they've uncovered a diamond in the rough for the fifth spot. I'm on record as not being a huge fan of Brad Penny, but that can largely be attributed to his days in Los Angeles Dodger blue.

Make no mistake—killing the designated hitter and moving into a division where even the best offense would probably rank fourth in the American League East could lead Penny to the Fountain of Baseball Youth.

The third-place finisher for the 2007 National League Cy Young sure sounds motivated and happy to be back in the familiar environs of the NL West. If his argument about pitching hurt in 2008 for the Bums is true, San Francisco might be on the verge of something very special.

Understand, this is all revolutionary stuff for most Giant fans.

During my tenure as a die-hard, which dates back to 1988, the franchise has never been built around pitching. Even the magical miss of 1989 was powered by Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell (though both Rick Reuschel and Scott Garrelts had fine seasons from the bump).

Then some dude named Barry Bonds arrived in 1993 and—from that moment until this one—the bats were the unquestioned signature of the franchise.  Although John Burkett and Bill Swift each won 20 games in 1993, that was as much a function of the unbridled excellence of Bonds, Clark, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, and Willie McGee as it was a function of their own abilities.

Shoot, even Royce Clayton hit almost .300 that year.

For the last 20 years, the San Francisco Giants' calling card has been written on maple and ash. Not anymore.

The Freak and Cainer have the reins firmly in hand nor are they showing any signs of relinquishing them. This is a very good thing. As alluded to, Zito has been a stinking pile of filth ever since the second half dawned. So that makes three comforting slab presences.

And now Jonathan Sanchez seems to want to join the hill party.

Forget about the loss hanging around the young lefty's shoulders on Tuesday night. Even casual observers of the majors are coming to grips with the almost meaningless nature of wins and losses for most starting pitchers. You have to figure most inside the walls of the hallowed game have already professed their undying love for the idea and are currently spooning with it.

If a guy wins a bunch of games for a terrible team—this is about the only truly probative scenario I can think of (in 10 seconds) for the category and even that can easily be fudged. It doesn't take suspension of disbelief to envision a terrible team giving one guy an inordinate amount of run support.

Nope, for a guy who takes the ball in the first inning, wins and losses are entirely overrated.

Metrics like earned run average, walks-plus-hits per inning-pitched (WHIP), strikeouts, batting average against, on-base-average against, etc. are the ones you want to focus on.

Through the kaleidoscope of the latter statistics, the San Francisco southpaw's night takes on a shinier dimension. The 26-year-old only lasted the six innings, but he only suffered three hits and three walks while whiffing eight Philadelphia Phillies. Unluckily for Sanchez, two of the hits came in the same inning and were sandwiched around a stolen base from Shane Victorino.

Hence, the Giants No. 4 starter gave up a single earned run and it doomed him on a night when Cole Hamels' changeup completely baffled the opposing splinters.

Even so, what made Tuesday night reason for excitement wasn't merely the relatively clean line from Jonathan Sanchez against a ferocious offensive ballclub. More than that, it was the way the chucker authored the line.

Two months ago, this game gets ugly.

There would've been at least one crooked number from the Phils and Sanchez would've been lucky to see the third out of the fourth inning. As it was, he needed 116 pitches to eke out of the sixth without an utter meltdown like those that plagued his first array of trips to the mound.

But Jonathan Sanchez did just that—he avoided the meltdown, which was no small accomplishment.

Home plate umpire Chris Guccione called a pretty solid game, framing a relatively consistent strike zone for both teams. However, his zone didn't have many corners or much height to it so both pitchers had to work carefully and survive as much on command as "stuff."

Suffice it to say, none of the above typically favors the hard-thrower from the sinister side.

Take a peak at Sanchez' game log.

Quite a few of those disasters that temporarily banished him to the purgatory of middle relief were conspiracies of elements just like the ones he faced on Tuesday. Hiccups like missed calls, errors behind him, getting squeezed by the blue, and other snafus beyond Sanchez' control were once smoke before the inevitable fire of a three-run bomb or inning-long slaughter.

Yet the developing youngster took them in stride on Tuesday night and kept pushing forward.  Against a genuinely good team. With even a shred of support, he could've easily collected another impressive win.

The kid isn't quite ready to sit at the big boy table with the trio at the front of the rotation.

But Jonathan Sanchez is growing up quite nicely and right before our very eyes.

Better get that seat ready.

**www.pva.org**