NLCS Takeaways: Nationals' Anibal Sanchez pitches gem in Game 1 - Sportsnet.ca

In 2017, when a 33-year-old Anibal Sanchez was rocking a 6.41 ERA for the Detroit Tigers and a 28-year-old Miles Mikolas was pitching for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan, you might not have believed the time traveller who told you those two right-handers would be starting Game 1 of the National League Championship Series a couple years later.

And you really wouldn’t have believed them when they said it was a pitcher’s duel and that one of the two carried a no-hitter into the eighth. But there Sanchez and Mikolas were, going back and forth in Game 1 of the NLCS Friday night. They were both good, but Sanchez was great, falling just four outs shy of the third no-hitter in MLB history.

For that reason and more, the Nationals won 2-0, to take a one-game lead in the series. And here are your takeaways.Through the six games it took them to qualify for the NLCS, the Nationals asked Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin to pitch two-thirds of the club’s innings. You can see why. Washington’s bullpen ERA was second-worst to only the semi-pro Baltimore Orioles this season.

Nationals manager Davey Martinez simply doesn’t have many options he trusts. He has the aforementioned three, plus relievers Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle — and that’s about it. Credit to him for finding a way to get through a five-game series with so little. But he was going to need more contributions from his staff to win over seven.

Enter Sanchez. The Nationals starter gave Martinez exactly what he needed Friday, carrying a no-hitter through 7.2 innings before the Cardinals finally broke it up. The 35-year-old is your classic crafty veteran relying on unpredictability and guile to gets outs late in his career with diminished stuff. And that’s exactly what Sanchez displayed Friday.

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