TORONTO – As Aaron Sanchez started to warm in the bullpen for his big-league debut, the Toronto Blue Jays trailed the Boston Red Sox by a run and his duty was to keep the score where it was.
By the time he was ready to take the mound, they had a one-run lead and his assignment was suddenly to protect the advantage.
“I told myself you better not let this go down here real fast,” a smiling Sanchez said afterwards.
There was never even a hint of that, as the 22-year-old jumped into a high-leverage situation – seventh inning, 5-4 lead, and Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Mike Napoli due up – and looked right at home in a brilliant two-inning outing that helped close out a 6-4 victory Wednesday night.
Consistently hitting 97 mph with his fastball, popping a couple of 99s for good measure, Sanchez went six up and six down, striking out both Daniel Nava and Stephen Drew looking at curveballs.
“Pretty impressive,” said manager John Gibbons. “I don’t know how you can do it any better than that.”
Added R.A. Dickey: “I thought he handled himself with great poise and hopefully that’s kind of a microcosm of what he’s going to become.”
The Blue Jays certainly got everything they hoped he would be when they moved him to the bullpen at triple-A Buffalo last week and promoted him Tuesday.
Sanchez had some nerves before taking the mound and debated asking who he was going to face, but ultimately decided to “go out there and pretend like nobody’s in the box.”
“These are guys I’ve watched play as a kid and to be out there facing them today, maybe if I didn’t think nobody in the box it could have made a difference,” he added. “My mentality out there was me and the catcher.”
Josh Thole says he’s often seen pitchers struggling with their nerves before making their debuts, but Sanchez “seemed really calm.”
That showed in his command, as 19 of his 25 pitches went for strikes, consistently repeating his delivery.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily that you’re out there thinking mechanics, but you have your little keys that you go through and you make sure that you hit on your keys and once you do that everything else takes care of itself,” said Sanchez. “Staying back, not getting too amped, staying behind the rubber, making sure I finish everything out front.”
No doubt helping Sanchez was following Dickey and his knuckleball on the mound, although the transition made life difficult for Thole.
The disparity in velocity made Sanchez’s fastball look “like 112 coming in. I felt like I almost missed the first warm-up pitch, it was quite a change.”
Once he had adjusted, Thole marvelled at the rookie right-hander’s command.
“Really locating down, just pounding the bottom of the zone, and throwing strikes,” he said. “Because he moves the ball quite a bit, that’s something that’s going to be huge for him, to command his pitches instead of just raring back.
“(The curveball had) great action on it. Coming off that sinker, it’s going to be a pivotal pitch, I think.”
Gibbons had hoped to debut Sanchez in a spot with less on the line, but everything worked out in the end.
“He looked like he belonged,” said Gibbons. “You see different guys over the years, young kids that come up and they can look a little rattled. We’ve seen that in the past a little bit. But he carries himself a lot like (Marcus) Stroman, they believe in themselves and that showed. For his big-league debut it was pretty special and what the team needed at that point. We were pretty beat up down there and to give us two easy shut-down innings was huge for the ball club.
“We brought him here for a reason, not just to debut, we brought him here to help us. That was a good start.”
Asked when everything sunk in, Sanchez replied: “At the end, when Gibby told me I was done and he gave me a big smile, and he said, ‘It’s OK to smile.’ That’s when everything hit me, that I just pitched in the big-leagues for the first time.”
Afterwards his parents, in town from Barstow, Calif., joined him in the dugout for pictures.
“It was a pretty surreal moment for me,” he said.
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An inability to contribute offensively cost Ryan Goins his job as the Blue Jays’ second baseman back in April but up for another shot, he’s off to a good start with hits in consecutive games.
His first career triple came in the sixth and tied the game 4-4, and he scored two batters later on third baseman Xander Bogaerts’ throwing error.
“(Tuesday) night he got that hit off the left-hander and he also smoked a ball to first that (Mike) Napoli made a nice play on and picked him,” said John Gibbons. “Of course, that run (Wednesday) is big, that’s the tying run right there. Ryan can play. He played for us in September last year and showed some signs that made us think, all right, he’s the guy this year. He got off to a slow start this year but he’s a baseball player, there’s something in there. You know what, he approached it the right way going down to Buffalo, determined to get back here and stick. He, too, is a very confident kid. But until you do it consistently there’s always a little bit of doubt in there. We have faith in him, we’ll see where all this goes but you just watch him moving around the field on defence, he’s a natural.”
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A lot of good things happened for the Blue Jays in their 6-4 win, but none more important than Jose Bautista’s continued awakening at the plate.
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The Blue Jays have a roster crunch coming when their injured sluggers return from the DL. John Gibbons offered some hints on what might happen once they’re back.