Sixto Sanchez could only watch as Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s fifth-inning line drive sailed over the wall in left-center field. Gurriel clapped his hands as rounded first base and began his trot home. Sanchez walked back onto the mound, wiped sweat off his face with his jersey, and got ready for the next hitter.
Sanchez rarely made mistakes on Wednesday, the third start of his big-league career. Gurriel took advantage of the closest thing to a miscue he was offered, turning on an inside slider for that two-run home run that lifted the Toronto Blue Jays to a 2-1 win at Marlins Park to split the two-game set. The loss drops the Marlins to 16-16. The Blue Jays improve to 19-16.
The home run served as the only runs Sanchez gave up over seven innings on Wednesday. He struck out five, scattered six hits and did not issue a walk while throwing 79 pitches, 56 of which went for strikes.
Three starts into his career, the top prospect in the Marlins' organization has a 2.37 ERA with 19 strikeouts against one walk in 19 innings of work. All five runs Sanchez has given up so far have come on home runs.
"I'm just trying to keep it simple," Sanchez said Tuesday. "Every day, I go out there, I work out and prepare myself for the outing and just work on my pitches and location and get ready."
Sanchez did that on Wednesday, the Gurriel home run that resulted in the loss notwithstanding, and relied on his defense to help him get out of a few innings as well.
He needed six pitches to work through the first, getting help from a baserunning blunder from the Blue Jays' Jonathan Villar who tried to turn a two-out single to shallow left into a double. Villar would later get picked off at third base to end the fourth.
Sanchez also had little help from his offense for the second consecutive start. Garrett Cooper cut the Marlins' deficit in half in the fifth with a two-out RBI single that scored Jon Berti, but Miami otherwise went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position on Wednesday.
