TORONTO — So this is what it’s like having a bona fide ace around.
First, David Price sits down in manager John Gibbons’ office as they talk about a plan for the Toronto Blue Jays rotation and says, in essence, “Whatever you want to do, Skip. Works for me.”
Price, as a result, will start in Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday, pitching on his six days rest. Mark Buehrle will get the call in Philadelphia on Wednesday, after Gibbons demurred making a definite call on him until seeing how Buehrle felt after Thursday’s start.
Buehrle isn’t injured, but after admitting that he felt some soreness after a start against the Minnesota Twins on Aug. 6, Gibbons and his staff have resolved to take Buehrle’s comfort into account — more so, certainly, than fiddling around with things to get Drew Hutchison as many home starts as possible.
What’s clear is that the two priorities for Gibbons are ensuring Price faces teams around the Blue Jays in the standings as often as possible — Price wasn’t acquired, in other words, to beat the Phillies — while also allowing wiggle room for a one-game wild-card playoff or a make-or-break game at the end of the regular season. Second is keeping Buehrle as fresh as possible.
Price is quite a luxury for Gibbons, who hasn’t had an ace in his second go-round with the Blue Jays. And Gibbons plans on treating him as such — meaning on the day after a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees in which some questioned Gibbons’ decision to let Price start the seventh inning, taking him out after a ground-rule double by Chase Headley cut the Blue Jays lead to 3-1. Carlos Beltran, of course, greeted Price’s replacement, Aaron Sanchez, with a three-run, pinch-hit home run.
Headley, a switch-hitter, had already hit Price twice, although one of them was, as Gibbons said, “a little dunk shot.” Gibbons said he had no doubt about sending Price out for the inning, despite the fact the Yankees had 10 base hits, and in fact said taking him out to let somebody else face Headley never entered his mind.
In Gibbons’ mind, that’s how you use an ace.
“You think back to when we had Doc (Roy Halladay) here … guys like that often lead the league in hits given up because they’re out there so long. But you still want them out there at crunch time.”