They – or, more precisely, we – all had the same question for Aaron Sanchez on Wednesday as he sat perched on the back of the dugout bench during batting practice.
While Marco Estrada held court on the field and bared his soul after his dream of pitching in Tuesday’s All-Star Game was snuffed out by a roster move onto the 15-day disabled list, Sanchez shrugged his shoulders as Dan Shulman, Buck Martinez, Joe Siddall – heck, everybody – asked him if he’d heard whether or not he was going to be Estrada’s replacement. Clarity of a sort would come in about 45 minutes, when Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost – who will be managing the American League team – walked out for a chat with his Toronto Blue Jays counterpart John Gibbons behind the batting cage.
The 24-year-old Sanchez was on a short list of “three or four pitchers,”(all starters) to replace Estrada, Gibbons was told. No other names were mentioned, but since the likes of Corey Kluber and Jose Quintana aren’t scheduled to pitch on Sunday, they would also have to be in the picture. Sanchez will start Saturday on his regular rest, meaning he avoids the prohibition against Sunday’s starters pitching in Tuesday’s game.
“We’ll get together as a staff and discuss it,” Yost said of his Royals coaching staff. “I do work off the players ballot. But the problem for me is that the players ballot was close.”
Would Sanchez, a native of Barstow, Calif., like to have family and friends make the three hour-drive south to San Diego next week? Uh, you think? Does he deserve the spot? You best believe it: Sanchez is 9-1 and is fourth in the AL innings pitched and sixth with a 2.94 earned run average – just a tick higher than that of Estrada. Has he thought about the All-Star Game, either before the starters and reserves were announced on Tuesday or after hearing of Estrada’s injury? If he did, the fact he asked whether the game was Tuesday or Monday was a nice piece of subterfuge.
As befits a guy who moved from the rotation to the bullpen last season, then spent all spring whip-sawing Grapefruit League hitters while hearing he was in a battle with Gavin Floyd for a starter’s spot and still hears about innings limits even as he transforms into the closest thing the organization has to a new Roy Halladay, Sanchez said: “I only focus on what I can control.”
But he did note that the players vote was conducted on June 24 while the Blue Jays were in Chicago to play the White Sox. “You’re a different pitcher now,” Shulman, the Blue Jays broadcaster told him. Sanchez nodded: his earned run average has dropped by a third of a run in two dominant starts since then. “Eight innings both times, too,” Sanchez added.
That Sanchez would choose to identify the innings pitched in those games tells you something about his growth as a starter. Sanchez showed flashes of this last year before going into the bullpen and helping save the 2016 season, but it’s clear in discussion with Sanchez now that he is even more aware of the importance of finishing games – of managing his outings.
An off-season regimen that added healthy pitching weight has allowed him to maintain his stamina and in turn his mechanics, which has freed him up to think a little more about attacking hitters and retaining the game plan throughout his starts. Yeah, the fastball’s electric; but it’s telling that when Yost discussed what impresses him about Sanchez – who locked down the Royals on three hits through eight innings on Monday – the Royals skipper referred to “his feel for his secondary pitches.”
Sanchez’s performance against the Royals came on his regular turn in the rotation after eight innings at Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies, when he became only the fifth AL pitcher in 18 years to throw at least eight innings while giving up one run or fewer in a game at Coors Field. And however this season ends up, he will take pride in that outing because the altitude in Denver has taken the measure of many a pitcher. Sanchez forgot about worrying about what his pitches were doing, while managing the physical toll on his body: as Troy Tulowitzki told him, one breath elsewhere is one and a half breaths in Colorado; don’t burn yourself out during patting practice and be prepared for a slower than expected recovery. “My legs have never felt like that after a game,” he said.
Even if Sanchez doesn’t get the call, the fact his omission made every pundits ‘snubs’ list says a great deal about how far he’s come. Like Estrada, Sanchez is a Cali guy. In fact, at one point he imagined he’d be pitching for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, since one of his best friends through high school was the daughter of Angels bench coach Dino Ebel, who is also from Barstow.
“We kind of grew up together,” said Sanchez, who instructs at a baseball camp run by Ebel in the off-season and has kept in touch with his schooldays friend. And when the 2010 draft rolled around, Sanchez says, there was much chatter that the Angels were going to tap into a rich vein of California pitching: himself, Dylan Covey from Maranatha HS in Pasadena, Pete Tago, from Dana Point and Tijuan Walker, from Yucaipa.
“They were going to stay close to home,” Sanchez said, chuckling.
Instead, the Angels used their three picks in front of Sanchez (Nos. 18, 29 and 30) to select Kaleb Cowart, a third baseman from Adel, Ga.; Cam Bedrosian, a pitcher from Senoia, Ga., and Chevy Clark, an outfielder from Marietta, Ga. Clearly, no California state of mind at work.
Sanchez was chosen 34th by the Blue Jays, with a compensation pick for the loss of free-agent Marco Scutaro, and was part of the so-called ‘Lansing Three’ along with Noah Sydergaard and Justin Nicolino.
Trades separated those three, and now Sanchez has also put a little distance between himself and friend Marcus Stroman – at least in the games consciousness. He has stepped out from the shadows of the Stro-show, into a starring role as – oh hell, I don’t know – the Sanchize, or something like that. He doesn’t need a ticket to San Diego to confirm it, although given all the talk about him having to go into the bullpen at some point this season to keep him pitching through the fall, making his first bullpen appearance of 2016 in the All-Star Game would be a neat twist.