TORONTO – It’s been six years since a Toronto Blue Jays hitter has gone where Chris Colabello finds himself this Saturday morning — six years since Scott Rolen rolled past 15 consecutive games with a hit en route to a 25-game streak.
There’s a funny thing about this game of baseball, Colabello said Friday night, or anything, for that matter.
"I’m a firm believer that when you aren’t searching for stuff … that’s when you find it," Colabello said, after a 3-for-4 performance in the Blue Jays’ 6-2 win over the Houston Astros at the Rogers Centre.
Like an ace pitcher, perhaps? OK, OK, that’s a stretch given Aaron Sanchez’s relative lack of experience at this level. False springs, and all that. But against a team that had the second-best record in the major leagues, had swept the Blue Jays earlier this season and had in fact won seven games in a row against Toronto stretching back to last August — and did we mention they also led the American League in home runs and steals? — Sanchez (5-4) was nothing short of masterful.
Pitching into the ninth for the first time in his career, Sanchez was clearly on fumes when Jason Castro homered to open the ninth and Jonathan Villar and George Springer followed up with singles — all with two strikes. But by then he’d done enough (three strikeouts and no walks, with only three hits allowed through eight innings) that the game was essentially done and dusted.
He would later say he was especially happy that he was able to "get in there and shut down things" after his teammates put up a five-run third inning, built on two-run home runs by Jose Reyes (his first of the season) and Jose Bautista (his ninth) as well as an RBI single by Colabello. The Blue Jays pushed across the sixth run in the sixth on a Kevin Pillar grounder.
"Just kind of made a couple of bad pitches, and that was all she wrote," Sanchez said later, reflecting on a botched complete game opportunity.
The guess here is there will be more chances. Many more. And those among us who pounded the drums for Sanchez as closer (not for punitive reasons, but simply because he was and likely still remains the best option) must now surely give up the ghost. Sanchez has fallen in lock step with a starting rotation that — shhhh! — suddenly seems stabilized.
General manager Alex Anthopoulos made clear Friday that finding bullpen pieces — plural — remains his priority now that the game’s bio-rhythms suggest teams will start showing an inclination to deal after the draft. Sources have indicated the Blue Jays will pursue Rafael Soriano even before he pitches at a free-agent trial in the Dominican Republic arranged by his agent, Alan Nero — and that they will have company.
Anthopoulos was actively looking at an outfielder as a fallback against Bautista being unable to play right field, but Bautista seems to be fitting in well with his sore shoulder and manager John Gibbons said, "I don’t think it’s going to be long before he’s 100 percent."
Anthopoulos couldn’t have been clearer that Reyes won’t be shifted to left field this season — "No, absolutely not," works for me, you know? — but the industry thinks Anthopoulos has not shut the door on adding another outfielder. Dalton Pompey’s not coming back any time soon, folks; and Michael Saunders … yeah. Well.
But at least the red flags around the starting rotation have been stowed away. Blue Jays starters have gone at least six innings in 14 of the past 16 games, and going into Friday’s first game of a six-game homestand had tossed 106 1/3 innings in their last 15, third-highest in the majors. Even the precipitous walk rate has declined, as the starters have now walked just nine in 74 2/3 innings.
Sanchez? Ace? Perhaps Colabello’s right; perhaps you do find what you really need when you aren’t looking for it.
"We faced him last year in triple-A, and he had electric stuff," said Colabello. "I just think it might have taken (Sanchez) a month or so to figure out who he was as a starter."
The Blue Jays will attempt to do something Saturday they have yet to do this season: win a fourth consecutive game. And it’s to be hoped that Drew Hutchison, who gets the start, took mental notes off of Sanchez’s approach. The Astros are aggressive, respond to attack with attack, even though Sanchez’s repertoire in some ways is better suited to the pillowy slow, ground-ball gobbling artificial surface at the Rogers Centre.
Sanchez left the game to a standing ovation, chewing his gum feverishly as he crossed the third base line to the dugout, nodding as his teammates called out and applauded and briefly touched the bill of his cap to acknowledge the crowd. The kid is special.
"Easy to watch," was the phrase Gibbons used to describe Sanchez’s outing. "He got a lot of ground balls … threw strike after strike. He lost it a couple of times, but not like he did earlier in the year. He can pound the strike zone, but now he can also run some balls inside against left-handers."
Robert Osuna struck out the side in the ninth to put the lid on any Astros comeback, shrugging off a run-scoring throwing error by catcher Russ Martin to sneak a called third strike past Jose Altuve — who went into the game with 22 strikeouts, and had the sixth-lowest strikeout percentage of major-league hitters — and get Preston Tucker waving at an 81 MPH pitch. He put the finishing touch on the night by blowing three fastballs by Evan Gattis.