Everything seems all right for Pablo Sandoval
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — The feeling was unfamiliar. Pablo Sandoval, in his third at-bat of the day against Rays lefthander Blake Snell on Saturday, turned on a 92-mile-per-hour fastball and smashed it over the fence for a three-run homer.
When was the last time Sandoval had gone deep while batting righthanded?
“I don’t remember,” he said. “But it felt good.”
Sandoval can be forgiven the lapse in memory, given that it had been more than 2½ years — another lifetime, really — since the then-Giants third baseman took Tom Gorzelanny deep in August 2014. That Sandoval did something on Saturday that he hadn’t done since his salad days in San Francisco added to the general sense of his turn-back-the-clock spring.
It’s possible to quibble with Sandoval’s approach. He swung at 8 of 11 pitches thrown in three plate appearances by the Rays lefty, and he swung over some good changeups. Nonetheless, the powerful contact against a pitcher who will be a starter in his division, the continued signs of agility in the field, and improved running speed down the line and on the bases all suggest a player whose physical tools are undeniably different from the ones on display in 2015 and 2016.
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