PORT ARTHUR — Nederland and Lamar ex Brian Sanches is headed back to Southeast Texas, hoping his phone will ring, after being released from the Philadelphia Phillies organization on Tuesday.

    Sanches, who was pitching for the Phillies AAA team at Lehigh Valley, appeared to have gotten caught up in sweeping changes made by the Phillies at baseball’s trade deadline. The pre-season favorite to win the National League, the Phillies are 16 1/2 games out of first place and look to be in a youth movement.

    Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, the manager of Lehigh Valley’s first place team, said Sanches pitched well for him, still has good enough stuff to be effective at the major league level and simply got caught up in a numbers situation as a result of all the moves the Phillies are making.

    “Brian was a great guy to have around and I sincerely wish him the best,” said the former Chicago Cubs great. “We’ve been battling for first place all year and he was a guy I knew I could count on. He’s shown some really good spurts. When he’s at his best, and his fastball is working, he’s got a change-up that’s a great out pitch at the major league level.”

    Sanches, in three different stints at Lehigh Valley, posted a 3-2 record with a 2.50 ERA, 31 strikeouts and only eight walks in 25 games. He’d been with the Phillies on two different occasions during the 2012 season but pitched only six innings.

    “It’s disappointing, but I understand what’s going on,” Sanches said. “Because of the way the season has gone, the Phillies are going young. They wound up sending two pitching prospects to Lehigh Valley, somebody had to go and I was the odd man out.

    “The reason I signed with the Philadelphia after last season was because it was a veteran team that everybody expected to be a contender. It seemed like it would be a great place to be for somebody with my experience. Things just didn’t work out.”

    Sanches, when he signed with the Phillies, was coming off three strong years of working in middle relief for the Florida Marlins. However, the attractive offers he anticipated as a free agent, never came. He wound up signing a minor league contract with the Phillies.

    Overall, Sanches pitched in the major leagues in seven different seasons with the Phillies (2006, 2007, 2012), the Washington Nationals (2008) and the Marlins (2009, 2010, 2011). He owns a 13-7 MLB record with a 3.75 career ERA. In 195 games covering 235 innings, he allowed 209 hits, struck out 204 and walked 122.

    “My arm is sound and I know I can still pitch,” said Sanches, who turns 34 next Wednesday.

    A 1996 Nederland graduate, Sanches has been in professional baseball since being take in the second round of the 1999 draft by the Kansas City Royals. In his first full season in the minor leagues, he pitched a no-hitter for Class A Wilmington on May 2, 2000.

    Philadelphia acquired him in a trade with Kansas City in 2004 and he made his major league debut for the Phillies on June 1, 2006.