No wonder Jays like their starting rotation

Known for big bats, Toronto now led by five excellent arms

Af t er he had completed his daily stroll from the dugout to the right- field corner on Saturday afternoon — a route that allows him to veer away from autograph- seekers along the baseline and head for the clutch of reporters waiting in front of the outfield fence — Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was asked what he hopes to see out of his starting pitchers at this time of the spring.

His answer, essentially: pitches.

Marco Estrada and Aaron Sanchez both threw on the weekend, with each giving up a couple of runs in a couple of innings. And no one particularly cares. The Toronto rotation is as set as it has ever been before mid-March, and so Gibbons has five starters who are simply trying to get themselves ready for April 6. They just need to get their work in, the manager said.

“They aren’t going anywhere,” Gibbons said.

That the rotation is so firmly established is an unusual development for a team that, not that long ago, spent the off- season wondering if it needed to trade a veteran bat for a starting arm. Even last spring, questions about the rotation were a constant theme.

The organization was trying to decide between Sanchez and veteran placeholders like Gavin Floyd and Jesse Chavez for the fifth spot, while David Price had left in free agency and Marcus Stroman was coming off a season in which he was only healthy enough to pitch in September.

Estrada and J. A. Happ had both just finished career years, but neither had a history of being high- end major- league starters. And R.A. Dickey was R.A. Dickey: he would eat a lot of innings and give his manager gastrointestinal pains while doing it.

From that, though, Toronto ended up with its best asset in 2016. Sanchez turned into a star, Happ won 20 games, Estrada was solid again and Stroman overcame a mid- season swoon to pitch well down the stretch.

Dickey was Dickey, and was replaced late in the season by veteran addition Francisco Liriano who, reunited with pitcher whisperer Russell Martin, threw as well as any of them.

That group, minus Dickey, remains intact for 2017, and the curious thing about Toronto’s starting staff is how it defies the t raditional one- t hrough- f i ve ranking of pitchers.

Sanchez, at 24, is the presumptive ace, after he was stellar for long stretches in his first full season as a starter. But Stroman was the presumptive ace last spring before his summer wobbles.

For an indication of his potential, consider his performance in the World Baseball Classic on Saturday night, where, pitching for the United States, he held the mighty Dominicans scoreless for four- plus innings, including a punchout of Jose Bautista that will probably be mentioned all year in the Blue Jays clubhouse.

Teammates rave about Liriano’s stuff, and they talk about him like Toronto happened to stumble across a wallet full of cash on t he sidewalk, which is sort of what happened: The Pittsburgh Pirates were so desperate to get out from under his US$ 13- million salary that they gave the Jays two prospects to take him in exchange for Drew Hutchinson.

And, while neither Happ nor Estrada have quite the sparkle of their young rotation-mates or the history of Liriano, who was an allstar starter at 22, both were very effective last season.

Happ posted a 3.18 ERA and Estrada was at 3.48, both behind Sanchez’s 3.00 but still very good considering their home park is very offence-friendly.

The knock on Happ and Estrada is that opposing batters had unusually low batting averages against them on balls in play in 2016, suggesting their ERAs could inflate this season. But if you use that argument to discount the Toronto rotation, you have to factor in that Stroman’s opponents had a high batting average on balls in play last season.

The four returning starters who were with Toronto all last season had some weirdly similar numbers: all posted between 161 and 166 strikeouts and all had FIPs — fielding- independent pitching, like an adjusted ERA — of between 3.55 and 4.15.

The team, not surprisingly, views this consistency as a plus.

“We feel like we have five really strong starters in this rotation, so any night, if we lose a game, we have a chance to go right back into the win column,” Sanchez said. “With myself, Stro, Liriano, Happer, Marco, you’ve got five really good quality starters who can get you back on track in a hurry.”

Asked i f he can remember a time when he had his rotation this set when spring training began, Gibbons paused to think. And the pause stretched. “Maybe?” he offered. “It’s probably happened, but I don’t know that we’ve had a year when we’ve felt this good about it, that’s for sure. There’s always been a question mark or two.”

This year’s question mark is about which one of them will get the ball on opening day. Gibbons says they haven’t figured that out yet, but they could go with any of them.

“It’s kind of honour you can put on your wall, knowing you did it one time,” the manager says.

“But, whoever we pick, we feel good.”

ANY NIGHT, IF WE LOSE A GAME, WE HAVE A CHANCE TO GO RIGHT BACK INTO THE WIN COLUMN.