Sánchez battles location all night in 4-1 loss to Astros

Aníbal Sánchez was hit fairly consistently throughout the night, as the Astros scored four runs off the Nationals right-hander to build their lead in Game 3 of the World Series.

The veteran ended up allowing 10 hits as Houston won 4-1 over the Nationals.

Michael Brantley had a pair of run-scoring singles, Josh Reddick added an RBI hit and Robinson Chirinos smacked a solo homer off the netting of the left field foul pole as Houston went up 4-1 in the sixth.

The Astros had three extra-base hits prior to that solo shot, with Jose Altuve connecting on two doubles.

"Today I feel good early in the game," Sánchez said. "I missed a couple pitches against those guys, Altuve he hit pretty well, and Brantley. In those spots, they were able to score runs. The pitch that I miss more (was) against Chirinos. He put a really good swing on it. (With) those guys, one of the things you can't miss, especially when I can't locate my pitch in the corners. That's when they able to hit (me) pretty good."

A key moment came in the top of the fifth when the Astros had Altuve in scoring position with one out and Brantley at the plate. Sánchez delivered what appeared to be two low strikes that were called balls by home plate umpire Gary Cederstrom. With the count 3-1, Brantley connected on a Sánchez splitter to right field to plate Altuve.

"For me, I never talk about any umpires," Sánchez said. "They humans. They can (make) mistakes, they can make some calls, but everything that happen today is not the umpire's fault. If I had execute my pitch better, I have to do it. I'm not going to say everything happen because I didn't get that call there. The pitch was close in the strike zone, but at the end, it's no big deal."

But when Sánchez did not get that strike three call to Brantley, the game changed. When Sánchez is successful, he is getting the calls in the bottom of the zone or on the corners. On Friday night, Cederstrom was not giving him those calls.

"For me, it's tough," Sánchez said. "When I don't have the location or I don't have the call on the corners, I have to throw more in the strike zone. Especially against the Astros lineup, they're pretty good. They're strong. They can hit pretty well. So if I'm not able to put the ball in the corners, I pay for it."

But the bottom line Friday night was that the Astros could see what Sánchez was doing while pounding out those 10 hits. Altuve had two doubles and Carlos Correa had one.

The Astros also ran against Sánchez. George Springer had two of the Astros' four stolen bases, setting the tone by running, tallying two stolen bases in the first three frames.

Nationals manager Davey Martinez said Houston was able to run on Sánchez and that made it harder for his starter to get out of innings quickly. Sánchez tried to throw over to first base several times early on in an attempt to quell the steals.

"If I had to pick one weakness from Aníbal, it's hold the runners on," Martinez said. "And we knew that. We tried different things. But he gets so focused on getting hitters out that sometimes he gets a little long. So we knew that coming in and we knew they were going to try to steal some bases; they did that tonight. We just have to be aware."

Sánchez ended up going 5 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on 10 hits with one walk and four strikeouts. He threw 93 pitches, 57 for strikes.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Nats trailed 2-1 after an RBI triple from Victor Robles. With the crowd in the game and Sánchez up next, did the skipper consider going to a pinch-hitter there to try to get the lead?

"I seriously thought about it, yeah," Martinez said. "But you know what? I like the way Sánchez was pitching, he's only had 60 pitches. I thought the way things were going, like I said, we put the ball in play, (but) just couldn't put the ball in play with runners in scoring position. I thought 2-1, the game was still fairly close. Like I say, I liked the way Sánchez was pitching at that point."