Back in the swing

Bits and pieces from the local sports scene:

Sanchez comes back from off-season surgery: Former Burbank High baseball star Freddy Sanchez is back to playing with the San Francisco Giants after off-season surgery and a lengthy rehabilitation.

The Giants showed Sanchez how much they had missed him this season by planting him right back at second base and straight into the third spot in the batting order for his season debut on last week.

Sanchez had missed all of spring training and the first 38 games of the regular season after undergoing surgery on his left shoulder in December.

Last season, he batted .293 with seven home runs and 41 RBIs.

Despite an inadvertent spiked cleat to the face from an opposing baserunner, Sanchez had the best game of his young season on Thursday.

He was two for two with two walks, two runs batted in and a run scored out of the second spot in the order. In addition, he drove in the game-winning runs in the Giants’ 5-4 win over the visiting Washington Nationals with a two-run single in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The outing helped Sanchez, who has played in just eight games since coming off the disabled list, bump his batting average up from .192 to .250.

Ex-Indians standouts compete on national level: Former Burroughs High track and field athletes will be taking part in elite competition this weekend.

Daniel Anderson is among nine women and four men who will represent UC San Diego at the 2010 NCAA Division II Track and Field Championships. The championships conclude today at the Irwin Belk Track Complex on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C.

Anderson will be the lone representative from the Triton distance squad, competing in the 800 meters. He set the school record in the event with a time of 1 minute, 50.56 seconds at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational and is seeded eighth at the NCAAs.

Lilyana Morejon, a junior at Cal State Northridge, will attempt to qualify for the NCAA Division I Championships in the 10,000 at the West Regional in Austin.

Western Nelson, in his first semester at Cal State San Marcos, will compete in the 10,000 at the National Aasn. of Intercollegiate Athletics Nationals in Indiana.

— Jeff Tully