When you pitch a solid game against the New York Yankees going 6 2/3 innings with five strikeouts and one earned run against, winning your 12th game of the season, you don’t usually expect to be sent down to the minor leagues. Unfortunately for Drew Hutchison that’s exactly what happened to him on Monday. The Toronto Blue Jays sent Hutchison, along with left-handed reliever Aaron Loup down to the teams Triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons, while calling up outfielder Ezequiel Carrera and infielder Matt Hague.
To some this was an eyebrow raising move, but when one takes a deeper look at the situation, one realizes that it’s a good baseball move by the Blue Jays.
If you include the 17th of August the Jays have three days off in the next two weeks. These off-days will allow the Blue Jays to use a four man rotation. With the recent stellar pitching from David Price, R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Marco Estrada, this made Hutchison the odd man out. In addition the games are on the road, and while Hutchison has done well in his last two starts, both were at the Rogers Centre. Hutchison’s home/road splits this season show that he has had major trouble pitching outside of Canada. With a two game series in Philadelphia, followed by three games each in Texas and Anaheim, using four pitchers and keeping Hutchison away from road games isn’t the worst thing ever.
This move ideally shouldn’t affect Hutchison in a negative way, as this allows him to pitch a couple of games in Triple-A on proper rest, instead of being placed in a long relief role and not knowing when he will pitch, or how many innings. When the Jays return home and again need a fifth starter, he can be recalled and ready to pitch.
Toronto also sent Aaron Loup down. He is a lefty specialist who has only pitched in five of the last 30 games. With the recent additions to the bullpen it has put Loup in a position where he is barely used. He can also pitch a few games with Buffalo, while being ready to be recalled when rosters expand in September. In general, Loup isn’t the most reliable pitcher and when the Blue Jays need to rely on their bullpen in this post season push, it has become obvious that John Gibbons does not trust him for anything more than mop up duty in blowouts.
The Blue Jays have been living dangerously when it comes to their bench; it got so bad to a point where they only had three bench players at times. The addition of Hague and Carrera to the bench allows the Blue Jays to not over use some of their players when they need a rest. It also adds a couple of extra pinch hitters to the lineup for the games in a National League park this week, giving Gibbons more options to hit for the pitcher.
Back to Hutchison, some people have this ridiculous idea, that the Blue Jays will just use a four man rotation until the end of the season. Another theory going around is that the Jays will wait for injured Marcus Stroman to return to the mound and start in place of Hutchison in September. Both of these ideas are ludicrous, Hutchison will be back in a two weeks, or less and there is a slim chance that Stroman will pitch for the Jays this season and a slimmer chance he will start.
What the Jays have done is made sure that their pitchers, especially Hutchison will get some games in stay warm and not get rusty, it’s a baseball move to keep their guys up to speed and healthy and is a very good move while the Jays try to use David Price for a few extra games and who can argue with that?
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