Gaby Sanchez’s alert eye key in Florida Marlins’ walk-off win

Mike Stanton was the big hero in the Marlins’ extra-inning victory over the Phillies on Wednesday with his game-ending home run, but it was Gaby Sanchez who made it possible with a heads-up play that few noticed.

Sanchez spotted Domonic Brown failing to touch second base on his gap hit, which got past Bryan Petersen and rolled to the warning track.

Brown ended up at third with a leadoff “triple” in the sixth with the Phillies holding a 5-3 lead. But after Sanchez alerted the rest of the Marlins to Brown’s miss, the play was appealed and umpire Kerwin Danley called Brown out. One batter later, John Mayberry cracked a home run.

“Defensive RBI,” said Marlins infield coach Perry Hill of Sanchez’s alert thinking. “Huge out. That saved a run.”

In describing the play, Hill said Sanchez did exactly as trained.

“The ball’s in the gap, so the shortstop goes out, the second baseman goes behind the shortstop, and the first baseman trails the runner to second in case he makes a wide run and we can throw behind him,” Hill said. “So if he continues to third, Gaby’s job is to watch him touch every base.”

After Sanchez saw Brown miss the bag, the Marlins had to hope that Danley did, too.

“Most of [the umpires] are watching the ball like the rest of us,” Hill said. “I was watching the ball. But that’s Gaby’s job, and he did it. And he got lucky that the umpire was watching it, too.

“It’s one of those things you never think about. He’s probably done that 300 times the last couple of years, and it never came into play. And instead of taking it for granted, he continued to do his job every time and eventually it paid off. Thumbs-up to Gaby.”


(miamiherald.com)