Sanchez ready to lead Blue Jays’ rotation

Aaron Sanchez came into spring training this year with a different mentality than in the past.

For the first time in his major-league career, the 24-yearold right-hander doesn’t have to prove he’s worthy of a spot in the Blue Jays’ starting rotation after his dominant season last year. He’s using that lack of pressure to sharpen his arsenal.

“The last few years I’ve come in having to compete for a spot,” Sanchez said Wednesday after his first official workout of the spring. “This year I have the luxury of (getting) to work on things. I feel like I made tremendous strides with my curveball last season and even in the offseason so my focus this year is on the change-up.” Sanchez threw his change-up just 270 times in 2016 - or nine per cent of the time - striking out 10 batters with it, but also giving up seven hits including a home run.

“I don’t want to get too caught up in it,” he said. “Just enough to have that comfort with it to take it into the regular season.” Sanchez helped anchor Toronto’s rotation last year, going 15-2 with an American Leaguebest 3.00 earned-run average. And he did it while on an innings limit.

Wanting to protect their young pitcher’s valuable arm, the organization debated sending Sanchez to the bullpen midway through the season. His performance in the rotation, however, made the decision more difficult.

In a compromise, Toronto opted to manage his innings by skipping a few of his starts.

Sanchez finished the regular season with 192 innings (plus 11 2/3 in the post-season), more than doubling his 2015 total (92 1/3) when he was used as a reliever for the second half of the year.

“I think last year I showed limitations shouldn’t be an issue,” Sanchez said. “I’ll leave that up to management and how they feel but I’m ready to go. I put the work in and I’m excited to see how this year shakes out.” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said he wasn’t worried about Sanchez’s innings this season.