Sanchez homers as Yanks slug past Tigers
LAKELAND, Fla. -- Gary Sanchez hit his second home run off Tigers pitching in six days, this one a two-run drive to the left-field berm at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium, as the Yankees powered their way to an 11-1 win over the Tigers on Saturday.Michael Pineda recovered from
LAKELAND, Fla. --
"Of course it's exciting," Pineda said. "It was my first outing and I feel pretty good. I threw a lot of strikes. I struck out a lot of people. For my first time, it makes me happy, so for now I want to continue working in Spring Training and be ready for the season."
Pineda left with a scoreless game thanks to two innings from Tigers starter
Hicks added a two-run home run off Anibal Sanchez in the fourth, sending a ball into the right-field party deck for his first homer of the spring.
"I need to continue working on everything, especially on location," Sanchez said. "Right now, I'm not putting the ball down. That's really easy for hitters to make really good contact."
Four runs in the fifth, three of them off Tigers closer
The Tigers have given up nine or more runs four times in the last six games, including twice to the Yankees. Their pitchers yielded 10 walks Saturday.
"We have to pitch better," manager Brad Ausmus said. "We talked about it today with the whole team. When you throw ball one, ball two, then you go to 3-1, 3-2, then you walk a guy, the defenders are standing out there for 20 minutes every half-inning. They get into the dugout and they're exhausted. They're drained. So not only does the poor pitching allow the other team to score runs, it hurts us offensively because guys are gassed from standing around."
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Jason Beck has covered the Tigers for MLB.com since 2002. Read Beck's Blog, follow him on Twitter @beckjason and listen to his podcast.
Bryan Hoch has covered the Yankees for MLB.com since 2007. Follow him on Twitter @bryanhoch and on Facebook.