ATLANTA – Another strong effort from Anibal Sanchez has the first-place Atlanta Braves facing a sudden surplus of starting pitchers.
Sanchez allowed only four hits in seven scoreless innings, Ender Inciarte homered and scored two runs, and the Braves, helped by a strange replay ruling, beat the San Diego Padres 4-2 Thursday night.
The Braves (40-28) moved 12 games over .500 for the first time since ending the 2013 season on top of the NL East. They haven’t been back to the playoffs since 2013, but now they’re again leading the division.
Sanchez has won two straight starts. With the emergence of rookie Mike Soroka and the expected return of Julio Teheran from the disabled list this weekend, Braves manager Brian Snitker could soon face difficult decisions in his rotation.
“We’ve got a good problem because we’ve got more starters than we can probably use right now,” Snitker said. “That’s something that not a lot of teams can say. So it’s going to be some tough decisions going forward.”