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On Thursday, Blue Jays' catcher Russell Martin began feeling woozy while in a sauna.

In the midst of a cold shower, he blacked out. In the process of going to ground, he twisted his knee. Martin blamed the lightheadedness on not eating enough.

A subsequent MRI revealed no structural damage. Before Friday's game, Martin wasn't noticeably limping or in any obvious distress. He will be rested over the weekend in the hopes that he can avoid going on the disabled list.

"You gotta stay healthy [in order to succeed]," manager John Gibbons said. "Fans don't want to hear it, but it's a fact. Certain guys get hurt …"

Gibbons left the idea dangling. Martin is one of those certain guys.

At some positions, the Jays would take a dip in quality if they had to go to their back-ups full-time. At catcher, they'd fall into an abyss.

For now, let's call this one a small base-balling disaster avoided. It's also an instructive reminder of how fragile the competitive balance of a big-league team can be at the precise moment of the season when most teams are considering changing it.

Almost a year ago to the day, Toronto began the deadline roster overhaul that turned this outfit from a phony contender into a real one. Troy Tulowitzki, David Price, Mark Lowe, et al. That was addition by addition.

This year, there's a strong element of subtraction in the mix. The Jays are buyers in search of starting pitching and middle relief help in an extreme sellers' market.

"There's just nothing out there," team president Mark Shapiro said. "You don't want to change something just for the sake of changing it. You want to get markedly better."

The most obvious way the Jays can get better in the next couple of months is to continue on with something they figured to lose – 24-year-old starter Aaron Sanchez.

The decision to move Sanchez to the bullpen once he hits a still-unannounced innings limit has gone from "No doubt about it" to "A considerable amount of doubt. Like, enough doubt to make us all sick." Blame Sanchez himself for being so good, so effortlessly.

On Friday, Gibbons laid out both cases, more, it seemed, for his own benefit than for ours. You could almost hear him arguing with himself.

"Nobody wants to move to him to 'pen. Nobody in here [the clubhouse], up there [in the executive offices] or anywhere in baseball. But [significant pause] it may be best for the kid in the long run. We want to win this year, but you still have to be conscious that the kid has a chance to be a good one for a long time."

It was revealing that Gibbons – a man not usually given to hyperbole – would later say he didn't want "blood on my hands" if Sanchez were to be injured while pitching a full season. It speaks to how fraught this decision is.

For one, everyone involved knows without being told how this will go.

When Sanchez is shut down – with the Jays still standing in a playoff spot – most of the fanbase will applaud their caution and long-term thinking. If Toronto goes on to make the playoffs, that impression of prudent professionalism will linger. Everybody wins.

If, however, the rotation then collapses and the club falls out of the playoff picture, the same guys who were getting applauded in August will be slaughtered in September. Suddenly, they're a bunch of cowardly helicopter parents ruining what could have been a championship year for the sake of a guy who said all along that he wanted to keep starting. Everybody loses.

It's one of those rare decisions that is totally binary – a win or a loss.

Thus, this choice is the first real fork in the road for the Mark Shapiro/GM Ross Atkins era.

"It could become a monster," Atkins said Thursday of the decision. "I'm not saying that it won't."

Shapiro pointed out that there's still more than a week until the non-waiver trade deadline: "Things can change fast."

Also, the Jays have what he called the "financial flexibility" to do deals in August – meaning Toronto could absorb some overpriced high-end talent if it was required to make a push into the playoffs.

But you are getting the strong sense of two things on horizon – a Blue Jays team going into the last quarter of the season without their best rotation performer, and no real help coming at the deadline.

Those are both reasonable decisions. Sanchez won't be a free agent until after the 2020 season. That's four cheap years of a player who's already working at an elite level. Why would you risk breaking your most valuable and yet most reasonably priced toy?

On the shopping list front, there is no sense in buying just to buy. All of last year's additions were massive upgrades made when the farm system was full.

It is difficult to see an as-yet available player like that out there this year. In order to get the sort of B- and C-level player who's on the market, you'll be giving up prospects from a now denuded minor-league system.

This wouldn't be mortgaging the future. It'd be straight-up giving it away.

But … But if you don't do either or those two things and it goes wrong … well, God help you.

And if you go the other way, and Sanchez falls apart … you see what I'm saying here. It only looks like an easy choice if you don't have to make it.

Last year, an expectation was created. Despite the tumult in the manner of their arrival, Shapiro and Atkins have ably carried that mantle forward.

But it won't be until they make the Sanchez decision that they really start earning their salaries.

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