A topic of discussion dating all the way back to spring training, a supposed innings limit on Aaron Sanchez, continues to be a hot topic.
With the Toronto Blue Jays back in the American League Championship Series for a second straight year, the temperature on the discussion has only risen with the announcement that Sanchez will likely be limited to one appearance in the series, starting Game 4 at Rogers Centre on Tuesday.
Why is this the case? Did Blue Jays management come down on field manager John Gibbons and instruct him to limit Sanchez to just one appearance in the ALCS?
“No, not at all,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins said on Prime Time Sports. “We included Aaron in the process as well. It was a similar process with different pieces of information and different inputs, but we were unanimous and united on that front.
“I think it’s all of the variables. It’s not just innings pitched, but innings pitched factors into it for all of them as we make each decision,” Atkins said. “It’s just overall workload and where they are in their careers and how they got there. So we’re definitely not going to run from it. The overall workload has been something we’ve talked about all year for Aaron Sanchez and what we’ve tried to do is manage that the best we can while giving our team the best chance to win.”
Expanding on this point, Atkins also stated that the Blue Jays are in a very good situation with Sanchez because of the strides he took this year by basically forcing the team’s hand to keep him in the starting rotation. As such, with him approaching 100 innings pitched more than he did all of last year (playoffs included), Atkins, Gibbons and Co. have had to get creative in his usage down the stretch and in the post-season.
“We’re really fortunate to be in a situation that we have this problem. I think if we would’ve been talking in spring training and saying you’re gonna have to only start Aaron Sanchez one time through the ALCS I think any fan in Toronto or Canada would’ve signed up for that given the starting point and how much he pitched the year before.”