Time heals all wounds for Tulo
Leadership in a major-league clubhouse can be very subtle, but whenever you ask players in the current Blue Jays community one name that always comes up is shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.
His offensive numbers are no longer elite at his position. He seems to lack the range and sure-handedness he once displayed at record percentages, but off the field he still makes his presence felt.
On Friday night in the eighth inning against Cleveland, Tulowitzki singled to right and tweaked his left groin as he left the batter’s box. Upon arriving at first, he quietly called for a pinch-runner and took himself out of the game.
Prior to Saturday’s 2-1 loss in 10 innings at Progressive Field, he sat in the dugout to talk about the injury, but the subject quickly turned to the state of the team.
“The game was kind of out of hand,” Tulowitzki explained. “I didn’t want to run any more after that (tweak) because I didn’t want to do anything further where it would jeopardize me for the long haul. There’s not going to be a DL stay or anything like that. Hopefully I’m in there (Sunday).”
Recall that the 32-year-old strained his right hamstring on a slide into third base in Anaheim on April 21 and took himself out of that game as well, landing on the DL and missing more than a month. But he believes this injury has nothing to do with the previous one.
Then came questions about the current state of the Jays’ clubhouse as they battle shoddy starting pitching and other factors just to get back to .500, with only the most Pollyanna-ish still thinking about October and a third straight trip to the post-season.
“We’re professionals,” Tulowitzki said. “They keep coming here every day doing their job in the cage, in the weight room, still playing the game the right way. So they’re doing what they need to do. Obviously we just need a little bit better results on the field. I think with time that will come.”
Time is not standing still. The place where frustration and despair can fester is inside a losing clubhouse and the Jays’ shortstop keeps an eye on teammates, not for any reason other than to help when he can. That’s a subtle form of leadership.
“Anything you can possibly do to help the team, help the younger guys, even help teammates that are struggling,” Tulowitzki said. “You always try to be there for guys. This game can be tough for all of us at times. When you have good friends on the team, guys that you can lean on, it makes it that much better. You look back at it in your career and you always have those guys that you really appreciate that helped you, so you try to be the same for other guys.”
One of the major reasons the Jays are struggling to win and have had close games devolve into routs is that the starting pitching has consistently failed to go deep, handing it off to a battered bullpen night after night.
Consider that over the last 18 games Jays starters are averaging just 42⁄ innings per assignment.
3 Consider that in the first eight games of this road trip, starters had worked a total of 332⁄ innings,
3 while the bullpen had logged 421⁄ 3. Consider that the last time starters had gone six-plus innings back-toback was Marcus Stroman and J.A. Happ on June 28 and 29, 19 games ago.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the team announced on Saturday that defending American League ERA champ Aaron Sanchez was headed back to the disabled list with blister issues on his right middle finger for the fourth time this season. He consulted with a hand specialist in Cleveland on Friday and is rolling with the results and subsequent advice.
“Good thing is he said I can still toss, just try to stay away from the pressure on the tip of the finger,” Sanchez said. “I’ll continue to do that.
“Of course it is (frustrating). I’ve done so much work to this point and had so many goals set into this year. You can’t control this. I think the main thing is making sure this is right. I can’t keep chasing this thing from the time this happened. I’m doing myself, this team, this organization no good going out there and hurting the guys in the ’pen. For me, the smartest thing is to get this covered and no more issues.”
On Saturday morning, Sanchez reached out via text message to Dodgers left-handed starter Rich Hill, who had been on the DL with blisters twice in April after missing much of the second half of last season with the same problem.
“I know he’s been on the DL more times than I have,” Sanchez said. “You can’t control a blister and I’ve said that time and time again. I’ll sit here and go crazy if I worry about this. It’s something you address. You try to do things so they don’t happen again. For me, it’s something I just can’t shake off this year. Address it. Take the lumps and move on.”
Sanchez explained that his current hotspot is different from the other three, and that calluses have built up on the others. As such, he said that nowhere in his thought process is the idea of shutting it down this year.
“Absolutely not,” the 25-year-old Sanchez bristled.
“I won’t let that happen. I’m going to overcome this one way or another. Hopefully I can take care of this and it won’t be an issue ever again. That’s not even in the equation for me.”
Meanwhile, left-hander Francisco Liriano will take Sanchez’s next scheduled start Monday, with righthander Cesar Valdez starting Tuesday against the A’s at the Rogers Centre.
In other roster moves, lefty Jeff Beliveau was designated for assignment, right-hander Chris Smith was recalled from Triple-A Buffalo and righty Joe Smith was activated for Saturday night’s game.