The Toronto Blue Jays have less than a week remaining on their sorry 2018 Major League Baseball campaign.
For Aaron Sanchez, the end has already arrived, the pitcher’s locker in the clubhouse at the Rogers Centre cleared of all his personal artifacts on Monday except his game jerseys that went grossly underused due to a lingering finger injury.
Following his final outing in Baltimore last Tuesday when he struggled over four innings of work, the 26-year-old finally declared “Uncle” to the mysterious ailment.
“He just came to us after the Baltimore start and said, ‘I want to get more information,’” is how Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said the conversation went with the righthanded starter who was being counted on to be the linchpin of the rotation this season.
Sanchez was supposed to get the start Monday night against the defending World Series champion Houston Astros in the first of a three-game series that will conclude the home portion of Toronto’s regular-season schedule.
Instead, Marco Estrada started against the Astros.
The decision was taken on Sunday to allow Sanchez to head home to the United States, where he is slated to see yet another hand specialist to try to determine why a badly bruised middle finger on his right hand will not heal.
Toronto’s season will officially end this coming Sunday in Florida with the finale of a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays. Atkins said that given the late stage of the season and the fact that the Blue Jays are in full-blown rebuilding mode for 2019, it is highly unlikely that Sanchez will return to the team this year.
“I think it’s just a matter of getting more information and where we are in the season,” said the GM, who remained curiously vague on the circumstances surrounding this latest development with Sanchez. “So we’re just collecting information, having him see other specialists.
“Where we are in the season, that means flights, and multiple flights don’t make a lot of sense.”
Atkins said that there are three hand specialists in the United States that the club would like to consult about the injury. He said Sanchez has already seen two of them. “We want to use all three, so we’re working towards that,” Atkins said.
The GM said he would not identify the doctors at the moment, out of respect for Sanchez’s privacy.
It has been another trying season for Sanchez, whose 2017 season was similarly almost completely wiped out due to a lingering blister problem on his right index finger. That limited him to just eight starts, not exactly what the 2016 American League earned run champion had in mind.
Determined to make amends this season, things went awry for Sanchez as the team was heading into Anaheim for a game against the Los Angeles Angels on June 21.
According to Sanchez, while attempting to move a heavy piece of luggage, his finger got caught up in the handle and it got wrenched.
Pitching before friends and family in his home state of California, Sanchez could only last one inning before pulling himself out of the game, his finger swelling noticeably.
It was diagnosed as nothing more than a finger contusion and the next day Sanchez was placed on the disabled list, a visit that lasted until Aug. 25, when he returned to the big leagues to play against Philadelphia.
Since then, Sanchez has made five starts with varying degrees of success, going 1-1 with a 6.04 ERA.
It was felt that he had turned a corner on Sept. 12 in Boston when he looked like the Sanchez of old, holding the Red Sox to just one run off three hits and six strikeouts at Fenway.
But it all went off the rails again in his last start in Baltimore.
“We thought Aaron was making a lot of progress and we were really encouraged by his outing in Boston,” Atkins said. “Aaron’s frustrated with not being able to perform at the highest level and wants more information. Obviously, we’re very supportive of that.”
Atkins indicated that the finger in question still looks a bit swollen, at least to a layman.
Asked if surgery might be needed, he said, “Surgery is always a possibility in the case of professional athletes. I wouldn’t eliminate it.”