PHOENIX — All season long, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons has patiently listened to the same question week after week, always framing his stock answer in a way that makes perfect sense.
It goes something like this: “Yes, we’re thinking about moving Aaron Sanchez back to the bullpen. He only pitched 100 innings last year and has never thrown more than 133 innings in any season. He’s having a great season but we’ve got to be careful. It just makes sense.”
But with each passing game, Sanchez just keeps cruising along, looking perfectly comfortable in his role as a starter. He did it again Tuesday night, tossing seven solid, stressless innings, to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-1. He gave up six hits, no walks, struck out five and got a dozen ground ball outs, needing just 98 pitches to earn his ninth consecutive winning decision to improve to 10-1.
Once again, there was nothing in his performance to suggest any wear or tear. He looked as fresh in his last inning as he did in his first.
He got a big three-run home run from Edwin Encarnacion, the slugger’s eighth home run at Chase Field in seven games played here as a Blue Jay, and that was plenty enough offence.
Before the game, Gibbons admitted that while the overall plan makes perfect sense, it isn’t as easy to believe it as it was coming out of spring training with the whole season ahead of him.
“You watch everything he’s doing and it makes you feel like you’re crazy to even discuss moving him out of there,” Gibbons said Tuesday afternoon. “He’s a big strong kid. Nobody really knows. Some pitchers get protected and they still get injured.
“A guy might have a huge jump in innings and it might not cause a problem that year, but then down the road it might result in an injury. The last thing you want to happen is for the kid to get hurt after being pushed too much. It’s really hard to know what’s the right thing to do.”
Nothing that happened in this, Sanchez’s 19th start, is going to make the decision any easier to make. Sanchez has now pitched 125 1/3 innings. He’s averaging a smooth 6 2/3 innings per start, consistently getting outs early in the count with his hard sinker. His 21 outs in this game consisted of 12 ground balls, five strikeouts, three fly balls to the outfield and a pop-up.
Jason Grilli pitched around a walk in the eighth inning and Roberto Osuna finished things off in a non-save situation in the ninth as the Jays improved to 53-42.
The Diamondbacks got on the board early, taking advantage of Jean Segura’s leadoff single in the first. He stole second, went to third on a groundball out and scored on another ground ball out. From that point onward, only one Arizona baserunner advanced beyond second base.
In the third, the Jays ambushed starter Zack Godley. With two out, Devon Travis singled into left field. Josh Donaldson followed suit and then, on a 2-1 count, Encarnacion lined his 25th homer of the year into the seats in left to give Toronto a 3-1 advantage.
With one out in the top of the fifth, Travis drilled a single to centre field. With Donaldson at the plate, Godley tried to pick Travis off first and threw it wildly down the right field line, allowing Travis to move up two bases. Donaldson then brought him home with a single into left field to make it 4-1.
The Jays scored another unearned run in the ninth, taking advantage of a second wild pickoff attempt at first base.
KFidlin@postmedia.com