A pair’s a necessity to win
The temptation as spring training began this year was to look to the two youngest Blue Jays starters, Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez, to spearhead the five-man rotation and lead Toronto back to the promised land of late October. Unfortunately it hasn’t happened. The Jays entered Saturday 13th in the American League in starters’ ERA and, with Stroman heading to the disabled list Friday with right shoulder fatigue, it doesn’t seem like the Jays’ two-ace concept will take hold any time soon.
Contending teams these days usually need not one but two reliable aces or borderline aces at the top of the rotation who can accumulate innings and contribute to a low combined ERA. As proof, just look at the five AL teams in a playoff position thus far and check out their top starting duos.
Before Saturday’s games, the Astros’ Justin Verlander and Gerritt Cole had logged 1161⁄ innings with a combined 1.32 ERA; Boston’s Chris Sale and Rick Porcello had pitched 1091⁄ 3 innings with a 2.47 ERA; Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco had pitched 1102⁄ 3 innings with a 3.09 ERA; the Yankees’ Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka had gone 991⁄ 3 innings with a 3.35 ERA; and the Angels’ Garrett Richards and Tyler Skaggs, leading what is basically a six-man group, had a 3.55 ERA in 832⁄ innings. Then you have Stroman and Sanchez. They were expected to do much more, expected to lead one of the top four starting groups in the AL, but in 832⁄ innings, they have a 5.49 ERA. Now Stroman is on the shelf indefinitely.
The expectation for the Sanchez-Stroman combo was heightened in 2016 when Sanchez led the AL in ERA as a 23-year-old, going 15-2 while throwing 192 innings. The 25-at-the-time Stroman was 9-10, but had his first season of 200-plus innings as the Jays earned the first wild-card spot. The sky was the limit. But Sanchez had blister and finger issues last season, and Stroman has a wonky shoulder this year.
The two still have a chance to make their mark for the Jays as a starting pair. Sanchez is just 25 and Stroman 27. They are both under club control for another two seasons, through the 2020 campaign. But they must stay healthy and each must make 30-plus starts.
Minus representation from the past nine seasons, following is a subjective view of the top five single-season pitching duos in 42 years of the Blue Jays:
1997: Roger Clemens (21-7, 2.05 ERA, 264.0 IP) and Pat Hentgen (15-10, 3.68 ERA, 264.0 IP): It was during Clemens’ first spring training with the Jays, as he stood waiting to tee off at the Innisbrook golf club with a couple of teammates and a Star columnist, when a couple of Red Sox fans fawned all over the Rocket about how much he would be missed at Fenway and how he was going to win the AL Cy Young in ’97.
The frothy fan walked up to Hentgen, standing by patiently to tee off and asked, “And who are you?” Hentgen quietly said, “I’m the ’96 Cy Young winner.”
Clemens went on to win the pitching Triple Crown (wins, ERA and strikeouts) that year while Hentgen continued his durable excellence for another season.
2011: Roy Halladay (20-11, 2.78 ERA, 246.0 IP)) and A.J. Burnett (18-10, 4.07 ERA, 221.1 IP): A future hall-of-famer, Halladay was in the third year of a six-season streak of finishing in the top five in Cy Young voting. He threw nine complete games, walked 39 and struck out 206 all season.
His partner, Burnett, fanned 231 batters and benefitted from a bullpen that did not allow an earned run in relief of his starts.
1982: Dave Stieb (17-14, 3.25 ERA, 288.1 IP) and Jim Clancy (16-14, 3.71 ERA, 266.2 IP): In the sixth year of the franchise, Stieb and Clancy carried a stunning load at the front end of the rotation. The old-school pair combined for 78 of the team’s 162 starts, recording 30 complete games and 33 victories in a 78-win season.
1993: Pat Hentgen (19-9, 3.87 ERA, 216.1 IP) and Juan Guzman (14-3, 3.99 ERA, 221.0 IP): On the way to a second straight World Series title, there was a turnover at the top of the Jays rotation. Jack Morris and Dave Stewart were in their late 30s and Stieb was gone from the scene. Guzman had burst to prominence the year before, while Hentgen had been a key middle reliever in the bullpen.
1987: Jimmy Key (17-8, 2.61 ERA, 261.0 IP) and Jim Clancy (15-11, 3.54 ERA, 241.1 IP): It was a 96-win season that ranked as one of the most disappointing in team history, as the Jays lost their final seven games to finish second to the Tigers. Key and Clancy were an imposing left-right combination, as they had been the year before. In fact Key, Clancy and Stieb appear throughout the decade of the ’80s for the Jays in various combinations of excellence and durability.