“We won one. We finally won one,” Anibal Sanchez told his longtime teammate and friend Max Scherzer when the Washington Nationals won the 2019 World Series.
The series went all seven games and the emotional moment between the two trended on all platforms of social media.
Scherzer was originally scheduled to pitch in Game 5 but was unable due to neck spasms.
He went on in Game 7 and pitched an okay game, going 5 innings allowing only 2 runs.
This is the veteran’s first championship in his 11-year career.
Sanchez was a hero. Not many expected him to dominate in the playoffs.
But in Game 1 of the NLCS Sanchez went 7 ⅔ no-hit innings against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The duo made history becoming the only teammates to throw back-to-back starts with at least five no-hit innings twice in their long careers.
The first time the duo made this accomplishment was in the 2013 ALCS series when they were still wearing the old-English D.
What most Detroit fans have been noticing, though, is that players accomplish more when they leave Detroit.
In the past five years, the list of former Tigers who have won a championship ring has grown. It includes Rick Porcello, Justin Verlander, Ian Kinsler, J.D. Martinez, David Price and now Sanchez and Scherzer.
Many are disappointed by the fact that the Tigers are now considered a laughing stock.
The pitching rotation has gotten worse and the lineup shows no character, as if the players are no longer recognizable.
The Detroit Free Press recently published on Twitter: “The 2014 Detroit Tigers once had a starting pitching rotation of Justin Verlander, David Price, Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello.”
Although it does hurt to be a Detroit fan seeing all of these former Tigers win big somewhere else, many fans still praise and root for these athletes.
The current development of the Tigers has focused primarily on building pitching domination with Casey Mize and Matt Manning.
The hope is that someday they can have a monster pitching rotation – just like they once had.