Ricardo Sanchez, 26, who emerged as Hanwha’s bread and butter after joining the team as a substitute in May, has struggled sharply for the second straight game.
Sanchez took the loss in the first game of the second half on 21 May against the Daejeon NC, giving up five runs on 10 hits (three homers) in five innings with no walks and three strikeouts. He hadn’t faced a home run in 51⅔ innings in his previous 10 games, but he gave up a leadoff homer to Son Ah-seob in the first inning and a back-to-back three-run shot to Yoon Hyung-joon and Park Gun-woo in the fifth.
In particular, the back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning were both fastballs, which were relatively well pitched to the high and low sides of the body, but the NC batters took them at the right time and sent them over the left field fence.
Ahead of the NC game on the 22nd, Hanwha manager Choi Won-ho said of Sanchez: “I think the hitters’ habits were exposed a little more than they were used to Sanchez’s pitches. When he throws fastballs and changeups, the hitters seem to pick up on the habits and respond to them. You can see that when they don’t hit the changeup, they just take the fastball and hit it. Once the pitcher’s habit is caught, Korean hitters don’t hit changeups and only hit fastballs. When fastballs are crowded, they are bound to get hit hard.”안전놀이터
Sanchez took the loss in his last start of the first half on 8 August against SSG in Daejeon, allowing eight runs (seven earned) on 10 hits with two walks and three strikeouts in 3.2 innings. After going 5-0 with a 1.48 ERA in the first nine games of the season, the right-hander has struggled of late, allowing 13 runs (12 earned) on 20 hits in eight innings over the last two games. His season ERA has risen to 3.16.
SBS Sports commentator Lee Soon-cheol, who broadcast the NC, also mentioned the possibility of Sanchez’s pitching habits being exposed, and Choi shared his thoughts. Choi said, “I didn’t think so until the SSG game, but yesterday (21st), the batters were hitting Sanchez’s fastballs with full support. I told them (the data team) to look for it,” Choi said.
Choi continued, “If a pitcher is exposed to a habit, he has to change it. You have to force yourself to do it,” he said. “If the batter thinks about the fastball and the changeup, he’s late with the fastball. If they only aim for the fastball instead of the changeup, they won’t be late. If you don’t work the corner, you’re going to get hit. You can’t just keep throwing to the corners, you have to make changes.”