Toronto Blue Jays starter Aaron Sanchez gave the Cleveland Indians a taste of their own medicine. He beat the Indians in Game 4 on the strength of the pitch that had been tormenting Blue Jays hitters in this series -- the curveball.
The last time Sanchez faced the Indians, he threw only eight of them and he got roughed up for five runs in four innings.
This time he was much more aggressive with the pitch, beginning in the first inning with Jason Kipnis, whom he struck out with a curve that ended up here.
Sanchez threw 28 curveballs in six innings, one shy of his season high for any start in 2016. He threw them on 30 percent of his pitches, a rate much higher than his season average (17 percent).
Of those 28, he threw 19 for strikes (68 percent). That was a marked improvement from September, when he threw barely half his curveballs for strikes (51 percent).
The curve was integral to Sanchez's six innings of one-run, two-hit ball. His bullpen backed him up with three scoreless innings.
This marked the fifth time overall and the third time in the past four years in which a team gave up two hits or fewer to win a game for which a loss would have meant postseason elimination (2015 Royals did so last season against the Astros).
Meanwhile, Blue Jays' hitters had three hits in eight at-bats ending with curveballs, after going 3-for-25 against them in the first three games of the series. Those included Josh Donaldson’s home run and Ezequiel Carrera’s RBI single.
