It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I can’t remember a regular season game this year that I’ve been more excited to cover than tomorrow’s.

I had every intention of taking the day off, but with Christian Garcia and now Humberto Sanchez pitching in the same game, how could you possibly miss it?

I’ve written about Garcia on here a few days ago, but the Sanchez news was somewhat unexpected.  I had heard about a week ago that he was supposed to start here tomorrow, but when Garcia got the nod instead, I dismissed it.

Thankfully, I ended up being right.

With the addition of Sanchez, all three players that the Yankees acquired in the Gary Sheffield trade are on the same roster at the same time for the first time.

The 25-year-old righty missed all of 2007 and some of this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery shortly after the trade.

This season, the 6′ 6″, 230 pounder was on the comeback trail with both the Gulf Coast League Yankees and Tampa Yankees.

With the GCL affiliate, he was 0-1 with a 2.31 ERA in 12 appearances.  In two games for Tampa, he was 0-1 with an ERA of 6.00

While he has primarily started this season, he has not had an appearance longer than two innings, and is only expected to get three outs tomorrow.

Ranked as the 12th best prospect in the Yankees farm system by Baseball America, Sanchez has been known to get his fastball up to 97 MPH.  Although he pitched for the Erie Seawolves in both 2005 and 2006, he’s never pitched at Waterfront Park, and has never faced the Thunder.

While the Thunder are adding both Garcia and Sanchez to the roster tomorrow, they’re definitely losing Oneli Perez and will likely be without the services of Zach Kroenke as well.

Perez leaves after his most impressive performance of the season, striking out nine batters over four innings of work in a spot start on Friday.

Tony Franklin declined comment about Kroenke after the game, but considering he apparently never left Scranton, it would appear as though he’ll be taken off of the roster as well.

Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com

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