Angel Sanchez was en route to his apartment Tuesday night when Class AAA Indianapolis manager Andy Barkett phoned. His first words were, “Sanchy, I’ve got great news for you.” The news rendered Sanchez, a 27-year-old reliever, rather speechless. He sputtered a response to Barkett to ensure the manager wasn’t joking. “No,” Barkett replied. “You’re going to the show.”
Before Sanchez packed his suitcase for an early-morning flight to Pittsburgh, where he joined the Pirates for his first day in the majors, he had two phone calls. The first was to his wife, Delia Verdugo, the second to his aunt, Bienvenida Suarez, at home in Tenares, Dominican Republic. Suarez is the woman who raised Sanchez, the one he still refers to as “Mom” today.
At first, Sanchez said, “I couldn’t talk.” In his mind, he retraced the seven years since signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2010. He may have been a month away from a September promotion with the Pirates in 2015 before he underwent Tommy John surgery. With his aunt waiting on the other end of the line, Sanchez finally said, “I’m going to the big leagues.”
“That was the only thing I could say at the moment,” he recalled Wednesday at PNC Park, standing in front of his locker and a crisp No. 59 jersey in the Pirates clubhouse.
The message was received.
“[Suarez] said she couldn’t sleep all night,” Sanchez said, smiling. “She wanted to tell everybody in the neighborhood, but everybody was sleeping at that time.”
When Suarez was a baby, his mother, unable to take care of the young child, gave the boy to his grandmother, Rosa Suarez. Together, Sanchez’s grandmother and aunts looked after him. At times when the baseball journey was rough, Sanchez said, he was motived by his grandmother, who died in 2013. “I play all this for my grandma,” he said.
“My grandma always told me she believed in me,” Sanchez said. “She told me, ‘If you like to play baseball, go play baseball. If you don’t like school, put school away, but don’t leave school, because its the only thing that's going to last forever for you. Baseball is going to be momentary.’ I told her I was going to make it for her. She is the reason why I’m here.”
Sanchez admitted he was surprised the Pirates needed another reliever after calling up three earlier Tuesday. He recalled thinking, “Whoa, what’s going on in the big leagues right now?” He didn’t expect to be asked to replace Edgar Santana, who was optioned to Indianapolis.
Sanchez had success in the low minors but bounced between four organizations before the Pirates claimed him off waivers July 31, 2014. He allowed three runs over 12 innings in the Arizona Fall League that fall. Sanchez turned heads the next season, posting a 2.69 ERA in 23 starts for Class AA Altoona and Indianapolis before surgery. After missing the 2016 season, Sanchez returned as a reliever this year and had a 3.74 ERA in 55⅓ innings.
“Finally, it paid off,” Sanchez said. “All the hard work.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: August 23, 2017, 7:11 p.m.
