Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Aaron Sanchez (41) throws against the Oakland Athletics in the second inning at the Rogers Centre in Toronto on April 22, 2016.John E. Sokolowski
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons has been warning that Aaron Sanchez would have nights like these.
Friday night, against the streaking Oakland Athletics at Rogers Centre, was one of them.
Pretty much unhittable through his first three starts this season, Sanchez was raked early and often by the hot-hitting A's lineup in an 8-5 Oakland victory, the sixth win in a row for the American League West visitors.
After winning the fifth spot in the rotation out of spring training, Sanchez has acted more like the ace of team than a No. 5.
Heading into Friday's game, he had gone at least six innings and allowed exactly one earned run in each of his previous three starts.
Gibbons has been delighted with the seeming ease the 23-year-old flamethrower has grasped his starting role this year.
But Gibbons has been warning those who darken his office doorway on a daily basis that Sanchez will eventually fall to Earth. Every good pitcher, he prophesized, will get his lunch handed to him every once in a while.
For Sanchez on Friday, it was like a three-course meal as Oakland stung him for one run off two hits in the first inning and then three more off four hits in the second. It was just the second time in 15 career starts that Sanchez has allowed more than three earned runs in a game.
By the time he departed with one out in the fifth inning, Sanchez (1-1) had been clubbed around for six runs off 10 hits, including a three-run home run by Chris Coghlan in the second.
Sanchez also added to his own misery in the Oakland fifth, after Toronto had cut the A's lead to 4-1 on a Darwin Barney homer in the third.
With Oakland runners at first and third, Sanchez unleashed a wild pitch that carded the fifth A's run.
Coco Crisp then doubled to bring Stephen Vogt around from second to make the score 6-1.
Playing with a lineup depleted by injuries and the shocking drug suspension announced earlier in the day to first baseman Chris Colabello, the Blue Jays were ill equipped, mentally and physically, to mount much of a response.
"What else are you going to do?" Gibbons said before the game when talking about the 80-game suspension handed out earlier in the day to Colabello for failing a drug test. "It's part of the game now. It doesn't happen a lot but it happens. You just deal with it."
Gibbons's hands were further tied heading into the first of three games against the A's by the absence of a couple of starters in shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and left fielder Michael Saunders. Tulowitzki was being rested for a sore hip that he developed after diving for a ball in Baltimore against the Orioles on Thursday night.
Saunders, the Toronto leadoff hitter, was being rested for a sore hamstring that has given him grief, on and off, throughout the season. Gibbons said he doesn't feel either injury is serious.
Still, Toronto fought back gamely, scoring singles in the sixth and seventh before Kevin Pillar found a hole through the left side on a seeing-eye ground ball with the bases loaded that scored two and cut the score to 8-5.
But the spirited Toronto rally was pretty much squelched in the top of the ninth when Oakland added two more runs with Toronto closer Roberto Osuna on the mound.
Khris Davis stuck the telling blow, a line-drive shot to left field that skipped past Ezequiel Carrera and was charitably ruled a double. That brought home Oakland runners from third and first.
Oakland starter Sonny Gray (3-1) worked hard to get the win after allowing three runs off six hits while striking out seven over seven innings.
To fill Colabello's spot on the 25-man roster, the Blue Jays recalled left-handed reliever Chad Girodo from their Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo. Earlier in the day the Blue Jays also announced they have signed veteran outfielder Michael Bourn, 33, to a minor league contract. Gibbons said the former all-star will report to extended spring training in Florida for the team to have a closeer look at.
In another development, Gibbons said that Drew Hutchison will be recalled from Buffalo on Sunday and will start that day in the finale against the A's.
The plan is to start to ease some of the workload on Toronto's starting pitching, meaning that everybody will be given an extra day's rest. Gibbons said the Hutchison move will be for one game only.
And on another (bad) note, catcher Russell Martin left Friday's game after the fifth innings as a "precaution for neck spasms."