TORONTO – Aaron Sanchez is on a short list of four candidates to replace Toronto Blue Jays teammate Marco Estrada on the American League all-star team, Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost revealed Wednesday.
Estrada’s spot opened up when he was placed on the disabled list with lower back tightness, and Sanchez, 9-1 with a 2.94 ERA in 17 starts is certainly a viable candidate. His next start is scheduled for Saturday, leaving him very capable of throwing an inning in Tuesday’s contest.
“I do work off the players’ ballot, but the problem is that for me, they’re all real close in terms of the votes,” said Yost. We have four guys we’re looking at and we’ll have to make a decision. …
“We’ll get together as a staff and make a determination of which way we’re going to go with that.”
Yost didn’t reveal the other potential candidates but did say he’s definitely going to replace Estrada with another starting pitcher. Trevor Bauer (7-2 with a 3.02 ERA), Jose Quintana (6-8, 3.06) and Blue Jays lefty J.A. Happ (11-3, 3.54) could be among those considered.
Yost, who watched Sanchez throw eight innings of one-run ball against his team Monday, was impressed by “the way he attacks with his fastball, really good feel for his secondary stuff. He’s definitely an all-star calibre type pitcher.”
Meanwhile, Major League Baseball said Wednesday that Blue Jays left-fielder Michael Saunders of Victoria and San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt were the first-day leaders in fan voting for the final roster spot on the American and National League all-star rosters.
Saunders collected 4.8 million votes while Belt had 2.5 million.
Trailing Saunders in the American League are, in order, Houston’s George Springer, Boston’s Dustin Pedroia, Detroit’s Ian Kinsler and Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria.
“Longoria, Pedroia, Kinsler, Saunders, (Carlos) Correa, all these guys – it was just hard,” Yost said of the roster selection process. “We need to take 13 pitchers and we had three teams that didn’t have a representative that we had to pick from. Those guys that I really felt should be on this team, we put them on the final five vote so the fans could vote at least one of them on. They’re all deserving.”
Belt leads Pittsburgh’s Starling Marte, Colorado’s Trevor Story, Arizona’s Jake Lamb and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun.
