Quick note on Hector Sanchez

He is a, uh, work in progress.

The 22-year-old catcher somehow became the sort-of-personal catcher for both Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum this year, even though he isn’t good at framing pitches or “catching.” Yet. He’s young. Give him time. But that time probably shouldn’t be in an elimination game. On an 0-2 count with two outs, Barry Zito dropped in a nasty curve to Zack Cozart:

If it looks a little low to you, that’s probably because of how Hector Sanchez caught it. The pitch was actually a clear strike:

That’d be the green “3” obscured by the red “1.”

When Bruce Bochy took Brandon Belt out and put Posey at first, he weakened the defense at two positions and the offense at one. But Sanchez singled ahead of Gregor Blanco’s homer, and the Cozart call didn’t hurt -- after Cozart singled, Joey Votto flew out to end the inning. So to this point, Bochy’s looking like he’s coming out ahead, even if he didn’t gamble wisely.