Gaby, Snider relish opportunity to contribute

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- It was a happy return to their former bases, in different veins, for both Gaby Sanchez and Travis Snider on Wednesday.

Sanchez was not only back at first base after laying low for four days with a right-knee tweak, but he was in the starting lineup against a right-hander, Brandon Morrow -- a big deal only because of what is at stake with Sanchez's ability to handle righties.

Snider, meanwhile, was back at his former Spring Training base from before Toronto dealt him to the Bucs at the 2012 Trade Deadline.

Both enjoyed the experience.

Sanchez drilled an RBI double up the left-center alley off Morrow for a 3-0 lead in the fifth. Snider clubbed Morrow's next pitch over the right-center fence for a 5-0 lead.

"Did it look all right? Then it was all right," Sanchez said, lightly, after coming out of the game.

"As pretty a swing as you'll see from a right-handed hitter," manager Clint Hurdle said of Sanchez's mechanics.

"The more I'm in there, the more comfortable I get. It's just good to be out there playing again," said Snider, who was brought along slowly while recovering from a three-stitch cut on a left finger in a kitchen-knife mishap and played in only his third game.

Snider also got the Bucs' scoring going with an RBI single in the first, and concluded a 3-for-3 day with a fifth-inning single off Jeremy Jeffress, another righty. He is hitting .444 in nine at-bats.