SEATTLE – In his 11 starts for the Toronto Blue Jays prior to the strained lat that sidelined him nearly two months, Aaron Sanchez went 5-4 with a 3.55 earned-run average over 66 innings, with 37 walks and 42 strikeouts.
It wasn’t always pretty, but over that span the 23-year-old learned plenty about himself on the mound as a starter.
“That I can do it at this level,” he said Saturday after rejoining the Blue Jays from the disabled list. “I started out real rough, not having a feel for a lot of things coming out of spring training, but seven out of my last eight starts were pretty decent for me in my eyes, coming off my best start against Houston, it just showed that I can do it at this level.”
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Starting in the majors is, of course, on hold for Sanchez for the rest of 2015, need in the bullpen relegating him to a back-end role along with closer Roberto Osuna and set-up man Bo Schultz.
The hope is manager John Gibbons will now have the weapons needed to lock down games late, which is what happened in Saturday’s 8-6 win over the Seattle Mariners, Sanchez pitching a scoreless eighth after the Blue Jays rallied to tie it up, and Osuna closing out the ninth after they took the lead.
“I love the way it turned out, and I really like the way it looked,” Gibbons said afterwards.
Still, there’s need in the rotation, too, of course, something the Blue Jays must address via trade in the short term. In the long term, Sanchez, as well as Osuna may be part of the solution there, but for now there was no time to wait for him to build back up, especially while games slipped away late.
The transition back to a relief role after beginning his rehab as a starter caught Sanchez off-guard – “all of a sudden it changes a little bit, so in that sense it was kind of like what are we doing here?” – but he’s fully committed.
“I understand, I’m here to help this team win games and if Gibby and the organization feel that me being in the bullpen is going to help then I’m all for it,” he said, adding later: “This team needs a guy down there, obviously we’ve been scuffling down there, and if they feel I can help these guys out down there, then that’s what I’m here for.”
Steve Delabar was optioned back to triple-A Buffalo to make room on the roster rather than Ryan Tepera, a move largely settled by Tepera’s ability to deliver multiple innings on a more regular basis. But he’s also been a bit steadier of late than Delabar, who’s had three clunkers in his past six outings.
With Sanchez back in the fold, Delabar is also somewhat redundant.
“It was a tough call,” said Gibbons. “Really what it came down to, they’ve both been throwing good, Tepera you can get more length out of consistently. He can go two every time he goes out, he can even go three if you needed. With Sanchie coming back, we’re trying to establish some roles there with those three guys, one inning late type things, we have (Liam) Hendriks who can go multiple innings, we felt we needed one more guy. (Aaron Loup) can do it, but we also want to use him situationally more. Without truly a real long man, this gives us a couple of guys that can do that.”
The Blue Jays need their rotation to make sure a long man isn’t needed very often, and to hand over games close enough for Sanchez’s time in the bullpen to matter.
He was dominant as a reliever last season, posting a 1.09 ERA and 0.697 WHIP in 33 innings over 24 games relying largely on his devastating sinker. The inconsistencies of his curveball and changeup sometimes hurt him as a starter, he was also developing a slider that will be shelved now, but he’ll need to mix them in on occasion now, too.
“Basically, in a one-inning role, he’ll still mix that stuff in, but that fastball, he’s going to turn it up even more now,” said Gibbons. “And it’s not like it’s a straight fastball, I think he can survive on that, but he needs to continue to mix in some of the other stuff to help him and make things easier.”
At the same time, Gibbons added, “you know what you’re getting, that’s for sure.”
Sanchez made two rehab appearances as a reliever at triple-A Buffalo, and while he threw more balls than strikes in both, he insists he’s ready to hit the ground running.
“Honestly, I don’t think my command was that bad when I was down there,” he said. “My first time out of the ‘pen down there, kind of had some cross-ups with the catcher and it looked worse than it really was. I came back out there my last outing a couple of days ago, and everything was good, velocity was there, pitches were there, so I’m excited, I’m ready to go.”