ARLINGTON, Texas — Monday marked the passage of a full month since Aaron Sanchez last threw a pitch in a real, live baseball game. It also marked the latest hurdle cleared in a recovery process he hopes will be his last for a good, long while.
The weather was hot and awful at Globe Life Park, but Sanchez didn’t mind, as he walked out beyond the left-field fence and threw 35 pitches in a two-inning bullpen session. He threw 20 at first, then sat down for a while to simulate a game-like scenario, before getting back up to throw 15 more. He threw all of his pitches, each came out of his hand the way he wanted it to, and, most importantly, his once-blistered right middle finger felt fine afterwards. Good news all around.
Thursday, he’ll go to Dunedin, Fla. to throw live batting practice against Blue Jays minor leaguers. If that goes well, he’ll make a rehab start for the Dunedin Blue Jays sometime the following week. If there are no hiccups there, he’ll likely make another rehab start before potentially rejoining Toronto’s rotation before the all-star break.
Here in the third month of a long, patience-testing season that has featured three separate trips to the disabled list with a variety of finger woes, Sanchez finally has reason for optimism.
“It’s been tough. I’ve tried to stay away from letting any kind of negative thoughts creep in, because I’m already pissed off with having to be on the DL three times and having to miss most of the first half with something so minimal,” Sanchez says, sitting at his locker Tuesday afternoon. “It’s just frustrating because it’s something so small. But hopefully we gave it enough time to heal and do everything it needed to do. Hopefully it’s at the point where everything’s durable and it can withhold what I need it to do.”
That would be a massive boon for the Blue Jays, who have been without Sanchez — a dynamic starter who at this time last year was about to be named an all-star — for practically the entire season. He’s made five starts, but one of them only lasted an inning, another ended at 78 pitches, and two others were pitched at decreased effectiveness due to the finger issues he’s battled off and on throughout his career.
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Finally, a month ago, the decision was made to shut Sanchez down for an extended period of time and allow his finger to completely heal. Since, the portion of his finger nail that he had removed earlier this season in order to alleviate pressure in the area where he was experiencing blisters has begun to grow back at its base, although not enough to cause him much discomfort. He may still have that portion of his nail removed again this off-season, and perhaps even treated with a chemical that will permanently prevent it from growing back.
But that’s a discussion for another day. For now, Sanchez has spent much of his time performing his delivery with a towel in hand in order to maintain his mechanics, and working out diligently in the weight room to preserve, and even increase, his shoulder strength. He’s played plenty of long toss to keep his arm loose and says he doesn’t expect to need much time to build back up to a starter’s workload again. His goal is to be able to throw at least 90 pitches when he returns to the Blue Jays rotation or, ideally, to not be on a pitch count at all.
“There was a span there where I didn’t get to play catch for a long time. So, that was a little tough,” Sanchez says. “But that’s what these bullpens are for, the live BP is for, the rehab games are for. Because it’s not doing anybody any good if I come back here and only get to throw 75 pitches.
“I’m doing everything I can to get everything back to where I feel it needs to be. The live BP and the rehab starts will give me an idea of game-type environments. I’ll have time to get where I need to get. And then, when it’s time to come back, it’s go time.”
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That’s certainly the hope. One of the most frustrating aspects of this odyssey for Sanchez is that it’s prevented him from building on the strong platform he set for himself as a starter last season, when he won the American League ERA crown with a 3.00 mark over 192 innings. He worked hard to develop his change-up this spring, and says he was very encouraged by how he felt during his first start of the season vs. Tampa Bay, when he held the Rays to four hits and a run over seven innings while striking out six.
But that’s when the finger issues reappeared. And Sanchez hasn’t thrown an outing he’s liked since.
“Towards the end of last year, I was really starting to figure myself out, and figure out pitching. And in Tampa, I saw flashes of really good things that I was getting better at,” Sanchez says. “But then the finger stuff came just one after the other after the other. Which is frustrating, because it’s something you can’t really control. I can’t control how my body heals. I can’t control how my finger’s going to react when I get out there. It was just such a tough luck situation, where I’ve done everything that I can possibly do to be out there and ready to pitch, and something’s telling me otherwise.
“And when you’re going through that, and you’re watching your teammates compete, and you know how hard you’ve worked in the off-season to be a part of this, and you aren’t able to do anything — it’s tough. It’s really tough. But, for the most part, I’m in good spirits. I’ve been doing everything I can to get back out there.”
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Sanchez’s return will be met with cautious optimism, for sure. Twice already this season, he thought he was ready to go and he wasn’t.
But the thought now is that his finger has had enough time to fully heal, and that Sanchez will be able to pitch through the end of the year without limitation, which is a funny thing to say about a 24-year-old whose 2016 campaign was marked by an ongoing debate over his innings limit. Who knows what the future holds, but Sanchez is confident he’s about to put this long, trying process behind him for good.
“If this is something that can be knocked out now and not be a problem for me down the road, then in the big picture it’s for the best,” he says. “Because, for me, I want to be that guy who’s being consistent — who goes out there every five days, and you know the bullpen’s got a day off that day. When I get back, I want to eat innings as much as I can. And just get after it.
“I guess that’s the good thing with all of this — there’s not really an innings limit anymore. Because I’ve missed so much time. Now, it’s just go get ‘em every five days. Now we roll.”
