Blue Jays’ Gibbons quells any unrest over six-man rotation

John Gibbons called his starting pitchers into the manager’s office following Saturday’s win over the Minnesota Twins to deliver a message: Stop it. Shut it. Stow it.

OK, so that’s a bit of a simplification and, yeah, maybe a shade dramatic. Got you, right? As one Toronto Blue Jays pitcher said, it was more a matter of the manager reminding all the starting pitchers that the whole six-man rotation setup was brought into place only after all of them signed off on it.

“I think Gibby felt there was a little bitching and moaning going on,” was how it was described to me. “Nothing major, but with Aaron (Sanchez) joining the team this week, he wanted to make sure everybody was on the same page.”

Sanchez, who was sent down to single-A Dunedin to bide his time as part of an innings-management scheme that has forced the other starters to adjust their routines for extra rest, is scheduled to rejoin the Blue Jays and likely pitch Wednesday against the Baltimore Orioles.

The advent of the six-man rotation hasn’t quite been the tire fire that some predicted. Marco Estrada has wobbled since then, but there’s some questions whether that’s because of a balky back or, as was the case in his last start, some good pitches being hit. As it turns out, when general manager Ross Atkins said this was uncharted territory, damn it if he wasn’t correct. Speaking of which …

DAMNED YANKEES

It was going to be so easy: tear down the club, load up with young pitchers and position players and put the New York Yankees in position to strike big in the winter between 2018-2019, when among a group of free-agent eligible players are the likes of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez and Trevor Rosenthal.

By that time, conventional wisdom says the likes of Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird, Aaron Judge, Clint Frazier and Jorge Mateo will be blooded and ready to take aim at the American League East title. By that time, all the bad contracts and bad players will have gone and the Yankees will find themselves in a position of ascendancy similar to the early days of the “Core Four.”

General manager Brian Cashman seems to have the full-throated backing of this generation of Steinbrenners for a bona fide rebuild of the franchise, but with each win and each extra day in contention for a wild-card spot, more and more whispers are heard suggesting the Yankees might want to make some strategic acquisitions ahead of that free-agent crop. Why wait for a feeding frenzy?

So there are now suggestions that perhaps the Yankees will try to re-sign Aroldis Chapman as a free agent this winter despite dealing him to the Chicago Cubs — Chapman quietly impressed the Yankees during his stint as a guy who wasn’t overwhelmed by the market or division — and with a great deal of money this winter you wonder whether they might not emerge as a contender for Jose Bautista, who has a career OPS of over 1.013 at Yankee Stadium (not to mention .957 at the Rogers Centre and .961 at Fenway Park) and might be able to serve as a bridge to that bright free-agent future on a contract that, if it were for three years, could allow him to be part of the team when that crop arrives.

QUIBBLES AND BITS

Bodog has put out its odds for the World Cup of Hockey and has made the same mistake almost everybody else does going into international competition by underestimating Finland. Canada is the favourite, listed at minus-150 – no qualms here – while Russia is plus-400, Sweden plus-500, Team USA plus-600, Finland plus-1400, North America Under-23 plus-1600, Czech Republic plus-2000 and Team Europe plus-3300. Once again, a reminder: the Finns are very much like Canadians when it comes to rallying in their country’s colours, certainly compared to the train wreck that is often the U.S. and Russia.

Remarkable, isn’t it, that Canadian men’s soccer coach Benito Floro can take a couple of players who are “unattached” (Marcus Haber and Junior Hoilett) while leaving off the likes of Toronto FC’s Will Johnson and Jonathan Osorio, second only to Cyle Larin of Orlando in minutes played by a Canadian player in Major League Soccer this season. OK – Hoilett I can see. But no place for the other two on a team that routinely comes up short while finding a spot for Jamar Dixon? Really? I mean, I guess you can never have too many Ottawa Fury players on your team. Still, who knew Floro could be that picky?

I mean, I’m not going to go all ‘I told you so’ about Melvin Upton Jr., who is hitting .310 in his last 11 games with 10 RBI, but he’s going to prove to be a significant acquisition not just for this season but next, when he will be one of three everyday outfielders for the Blue Jays while being paid by the San Diego Padres. Upton’s a better late-season hitter: 70 of his 163 home runs have come in August and September and his September OPS is 60 points over his career average. “I’m just finding a groove right now, I think,” Upton said. “I’m laying off some bad pitches, taking some others the other way.” Gibbons believes that Upton gives his lineup “a particular look we don’t often have, unless you’re talking about Pillar,” and says he thinks Upton’s capable of showing better bat control. “He’s a guy you might be able to put a play on with,” Gibbons said.

THE ENDGAME

I’m going to stand – or, in this case, sit – with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who has rankled many of the lemmings who follow, watch, cover, play in and run the NFL with his decision to not stand for the playing of the American national anthem.

First, I’ve made clear that playing the national anthem before a professional sports event is a sop to faux patriotism — a deliberately exclusive act that lost its meaning years ago. Most of the world gets by without it, only in countries like Canada and the U.S. that haven’t had wars fought on their own soil for a couple of centuries insist on it.

Second, Kaepernick seems to have a handle on his argument. “People of colour have been targeted by police … they are put in place by the government … there’s things we can do to hold them more accountable,” he told reporters Sunday. “You have people that practice law and are lawyers and go to school for eight years, but you can become a cop in six months and don’t have the same amount of training as a cosmetologist.”

The remarkable aspect of the coverage of Kaepernick’s stand is the focus on his skills and where he is on his career arc. Talk about missing the point. Unlike NBA players, NFL players do not have guaranteed contracts and their players’ association is nothing more than ownership’s lapdog. For that reason, we in the media ought to be applauding Kaepernick’s courage and his intention to continue to sit for the anthem.