GDT- Blue Jays @ Rays Game 3 of 4

[Spanky99]

Toronto Blue Jays Line-up

 

1. Kevin Pillar ® CF

2. Josh Donaldson ® 3B

3. Jose Bautista ® RF

4. Edwin Encarnacion ® DH

5. Troy Tulowitzki ® SS

6. Justin Smoak (S) 1B

7. Michael Saunders (L) LF

8. Russell Martin ® C

9. Ryan Goins (L) 2B

 

On the bump... RHP - Sanchez

 

Tampa Rays Line-up

 

1. Logan Forsythe ® 2B

2. Logan Morrison (L) 1B

3. Evan Longoria ® 3B

4. Corey Dickerson (L) DH

5. Desmond Jennings ® LF

6. Brad Miller (L) SS

7. Steven Souza Jr. ® RF

8. Kevin Kiermaier (L) CF

9. Hank Conger (S) C

 

On the bump... RHP - Odorizzi

 

By Gregor Chisholm / MLB.com | 1:34 AM ET + 9 COMMENTS

A pair of promising right-handers will be matched up against each other on Tuesday night, when Aaron Sanchez gets the start for Toronto and Jake Odorizzi takes the mound for Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field.

 

Odorizzi will have the difficult task of trying to tame a lineup that is expected to be the best in baseball again this season. Toronto led the Major Leagues in runs last season, with 891, and intends to do more of the same in 2016 with a core that has remained mostly intact.

"We all know what they're capable of doing," Odorizzi said. "Everybody knows about it. Everybody's aware. Just looking to go out there and have success any way possible. Whoever is catching tomorrow, we'll get a good game plan. And I'll have seen them twice before I pitch."

Sanchez will make his first start of the season for Toronto after being named to the rotation during the final week of Spring Training. Sanchez finished on top following a difficult competition that also included Gavin Floyd, Jesse Chavez and Drew Hutchison.

"Things weren't right last year," Sanchez said. "Nothing seemed to click. But this year, all of the work that I put in, it feels like I'm out there effortlessly with my mechanics, and I feel like that was a big part of my issues last year. I wasn't in the right spot to execute the pitches, and this year it's much more stable to be in the right positions without even thinking about it."

Three things to know about this game:

• Odorizzi is 2-2 with a 3.96 ERA in six career starts against the Blue Jays. He did not yield a home run in the first four starts but allowed two in each of the last two outings.

• The Blue Jays will have Russell Martin back behind the plate. He had the day off on Monday because knuckleballer R.A. Dickey was on the mound, and Dickey has a personal catcher in Josh Thole. First baseman Justin Smoak also likely will make his first start of the season after Chris Colabello started the first two games.

 

• In their last 25 visits to Tropicana Field, the Blue Jays have won only three series. The Rays are 21-3-1 over that span.

 

LETS GO BLUE JAYS *CLAP, CLAP* *CLAP, CLAP, CLAP*

 

LETS GO BLUE JAYS *CLAP, CLAP* *CLAP, CLAP, CLAP*

 

LETS GO BLUE JAYS *CLAP, CLAP* *CLAP, CLAP, CLAP*

 

 

[intentional wok]

Can't wait to not have to watch games at the Trop. Just the dreariest place to have a baseball game.

[flafson]

Can't wait to not have to watch games at the Trop. Just the dreariest place to have a baseball game.

 

On TV they all look more or less the same.

[intentional wok]

On TV they all look more or less the same.

 

I mean if you're blind and deaf I can understand that.

[KinofChaos]

Can't wait to not have to watch games at the Trop. Just the dreariest place to have a baseball game.

 

It's depressing just watching game there, what a dump.

[Rusty_Savage]

On TV they all look more or less the same.

 

Yeah on tv the Trop, AT&T park and PNC park could almost be interchangeable.

 

This isn't basketball, hockey or football

[Angrioter]

Best game of the season so far today. Sanchez is a big question mark that everyone here want to see. Good or bad

[KinofChaos]

Best game of the season so far today. Sanchez is a big question mark that everyone here want to see. Good or bad

 

If Sanchez takes the next step and pitches like he did in spring what a boost to this team it would be.

[KinofChaos]

Smoak ahead of Saunders and Martin? f*** Gibby.

[frizzer1]

Smoak is a rally killer....he should be batting lower...

[L54]

Best game of the season so far today. Sanchez is a big question mark that everyone here want to see. Good or bad

 

Reply to my chat on Yahoo.

[nmrch]

The moneyline on this game is exactly a flip

[gruber92]

Smoak ahead of Saunders is a move made by someone who is mentally challenged.

[KinofChaos]

Smoak ahead of Saunders is a move made by someone who is mentally challenged.

 

It's ridiculous, can't believe we have Gibbons running this team. Still have nightmares about him running out sanchez instead of lowe in key spots in the playoffs. Why did we trade for Lowe again?

[gruber92]

It's ridiculous, can't believe we have Gibbons running this team. Still have nightmares about him running out sanchez instead of lowe in key spots in the playoffs. Why did we trade for Lowe again?

 

Yeah.. The best was when he brought out Sanchez with a runner on third with one out in a tie or a one run game (can't recall exactly, but it was either or), with Lowe available. I seriously don't know what leads him to his decision making. I think he has dreams the night before of someone doing well and just goes with it.

[reedjohnsonfan]

In the past, Gibby has not been afraid to move the middle of the lineup ahead in the order if there wasn't a good leadoff candidate. Didn't Donaldson leadoff a few times last year? How about the days when Bautista was hitting 2nd for a while behind Reyes or Melky? They should just let Donaldson leadoff, or try Tulowitzki again.

[King]

Fangraphs is down.

[Angrioter]

If Sanchez takes the next step and pitches like he did in spring what a boost to this team it would be.

 

Muy muy grande. Could be the best news since Shapiro arrives

[gruber92]

1. Donaldson

2. Saunders

3. Bautista

4. Tulo

5. EE

6. Martin

7. Smoak / Colabello

8. Pillar

9. Goins

 

This should be the current line up for at least the next 3-4 weeks. Then flip flop Tulo and EE. When Travis is back, just exchange him with Goins until he gets his timing back.

[RealAccountant]

So sad I'm going to miss Sanchize's start :-(

[KinofChaos]

Barry Davis ugh.

[Spoonovic]

Can someone post this article please?

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/15139419/why-jays-made-right-call-placing-aaron-sanchez-rotation-mlb

[Boxcar]

I mean if you're blind and deaf I can understand that.

 

Would match up with his player analysis.

[Boxcar]

Smoak ahead of Saunders is a move made by someone who is mentally challenged.

 

They are probably equivalent, hitting wise. Not sure why this is upsetting.

[Daniel Labude]

Lets Go Blue Jays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Governator]

I'm taking a risk starting Sanchez in my pool tonight, but sometimes you just got to believe.

[gruber92]

They are probably equivalent, hitting wise. Not sure why this is upsetting.

 

Although their wRC+ are probably equivalent (without checking), Saunders has to have a better contact percentage (again, without checking).

[Krylian]

Can someone post this article please?

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/15139419/why-jays-made-right-call-placing-aaron-sanchez-rotation-mlb

 

It's official now: Aaron Sanchez, who pitched mostly in relief for the Toronto Blue Jays last season, is back in the starting rotation and will start Tuesday night's game against the Tampa Bay Rays. He has wanted this for quite a while, if only to quiet the hounding media ("Stop pounding me with questions," he recently told John Lott of Blue Jays Nation).

 

Between the majors and minors, Sanchez has 58 relief appearances and 34 starts in the past two years. But the fact that only 11 of those starts have come in the big leagues is not the only reason many consider him a reliever first and a starter second. First of all, he has been lights-out as a reliever (0.78 WHIP) and subpar as a starter (1.44 WHIP, 37 walks, 42 K's in 66 innings). But there's more to it than that. Given what we've seen of his stamina, his command and his arsenal, there are legit reasons to think this won't work out.

 

Then again, if you look at what Sanchez has done recently to address each of these issues, the thought of him being a starter is a lot more conceivable. It's those things that president/CEO Mark Shapiro and his front-office team in Toronto must have heard about when they canvassed 20 people in the organization to get feedback on their decision. So what has Sanchez done that makes him a good fit as a starting pitcher?

 

Stamina

 

 

Sanchez faces quite a catch-22: How can he build the stamina to be a starter if he has to be a starter to get the stamina?

 

Maybe it's a little unfair to ask this about Sanchez, but his career high in innings in a season -- 133 1/3 innings in 2014 -- suggests it's unlikely he can throw 200 innings this season. It would be much easier for the team to just place him back in a relief role and enjoy the lights-out trio they'd have (along with Roberto Osuna and Drew Storen) at the back end of their bullpen. After all, that's what all the cool teams are doing these days. There is a decent number of successful "innings-light" pitchers in the majors, such as Francisco Liriano, but for the most part, teams expect innings-eaters.

 

It goes beyond just previous innings, though. Sanchez is 6-foot-4 with long levers that he sometimes struggles to put in the right places at times. That's why he has a walk rate that's 25 percent worse than league average so far in his career, and that's why many scouts have thought all along that he'd be in the bullpen, where it's easier to keep your mechanics in check in shorter stretches.

 

With Sanchez, the stamina ties in directly with pitch efficiency, throwing strikes and keeping his pitch count as low as possible. While that has been a problem for him as a starter (13.2 percent walk rate), at least now we know he can be efficient as a reliever (7.3 percent walk rate). It's just a matter of taking that approach to his starting gig. Also worth noting: In his starts last season, Sanchez did maintain his fastball velocity; he averaged 94 mph in the first inning and 93.5 in the fifth inning.

 

It's easy to doubt Sanchez by looking at past relievers-turned-starters -- the list is pretty grim if you focus on Daniel Bard, Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando and Joba Chamberlain -- but Sanchez has the goods to take his better control to the starting role, which should lead to a lower pitch count and thus better stamina.

 

Command

 

This one is just as important, if not more so. First of all, let's settle this: There is no relationship between height and fastball velocity or strikeout rate, at least not one the numbers can uncover when examining major league pitchers. There is also no relationship between height and walk rate at the big league level, a thing that many scouts would doubt.

 

Now, that data may be flawed, considering many young, tall and lanky kids don't even reach the bigs if they haven't shown he can command his pitches. In any case, Sanchez is here, and the point is there's no reason a tall guy like him couldn't have good command. But first he needed to do two things.

 

The first was to get bigger. Sanchez went to Duke and trained with the same people who helped Marcus Stroman come back from his ACL injury so quickly. Sanchez added 20 pounds of muscle, and that has been helping him repeat his delivery better. As he told Lott:

 

"I know a lot of people may say 20 pounds might not be anything, but my delivery just comes so seamlessly now," he says. "Before I was thinking too much out there, worried about whether I'm in the right position. This year it comes so much more natural. When I'm out there, it's about executing pitches, it's not, 'Hey, am I in the right spot in my delivery to execute those pitches?' I've done everything right to this point."

 

A starter's objective is to repeat the same mechanics over and over again, and all the reports are saying that he's doing that better with the added weight.

 

He also made an important change to his mechanics:

 

Now he's bigger and repeating a simplified delivery better. This spring, he walked only three of the 78 batters he faced, a rate that's about twice as good as the league average. And he went from looking like this to looking like this.

 

Arsenal

 

Even if we feel he'll quickly build the stamina to be a reliable starter and improve his command based on the physical and mechanical changes, there's also the issue that, so far in his career, he has been mostly a two-pitch pitcher. Drew Fairservice at Jays Nation went even further, calling him a one-pitch pitcher, and he has a good point: Sanchez's curveball, his secondary pitch, has not rated as above-average in terms of whiff and ground ball rates so far in his career.

 

Even if you give him the curve, there are very few sinker/curve starters in the big leagues; it's basically just Charlie Morton and Ivan Nova. That led Fairservice to conclude that Sanchez should probably relieve.

 

But Sanchez has been developing his changeup, and it's not unreasonable to think he'll throw it more as a starter. He'll need to turn over the lineup a time or two, and that will require throwing different pitch types. When he started early last year, he threw the change only 7 percent of the time. That's not a lot, but enough to give us some data on the pitch. First of all, Sanchez's changeup has above-average movement, along with average velocity with respect to his fastball. The most similar changeup to his in those terms is the one thrown by Carlos Martinez last year, which got great results. Not surprisingly, Sanchez has gotten whiffs once every five times he has thrown the pitch, which is comfortably above average.

 

Or maybe it would be more beneficial to simply get a look at the pitch, courtesy of @GideonTurk:

 

That's nasty stuff right there. If you give Sanchez a high-velocity sinker with elite rates, an above-average curveball and an above-average change, you have what sounds like at least an above-average pitcher. From that description, the Carlos Martinez comparison gets even better -- and that is the upside driving the Blue Jays to give Sanchez a shot.

 

After all, Martinez just threw 180 innings of lights-out baseball for the Cardinals last year, and the Blue Jays' rotation could use that sort of shot in the arm. And, just as Martinez made a few adjustments to put himself in the position to pitch well last year, Sanchez has made those adjustments and is ready to shine once every five days, at least until the team decides its needs to protect his arm for the future.

[King]

Although their wRC+ are probably equivalent (without checking), Saunders has to have a better contact percentage (again, without checking).

 

Saunders career 75.9%

Smoak career 77%

[Slade]

Can't wait for Gavin Floyd debut today.