Something had to give with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Aaron Sanchez, in the midst of a Cy Young-calibre season, was likely on an innings-limit. The team danced around calling it one outright, but there was always a plan in place to curb his usage. Only 24 and in his third major-league season, Sanchez had already blown by the 96 innings he pitched in 2015.

Then, there was the acquisition of Francisco Liriano from the Pittsburgh Pirates at the trade deadline, presumably to help facilitate transitioning Sanchez to the bullpen where he spent most of last season. A starter for the vast majority of his 11-year career, Liriano didn’t come over to work out of the ‘pen. In fact, the one year remaining on his contract was a pretty good indicator that general manager Ross Atkins likely intended for the 32-year-old Dominican to occupy free agent-to-be R.A. Dickey’s spot in the rotation next season.

But then the Toronto Blue Jays announced a six-man rotation at the beginning of August with both Sanchez and Liriano in it. Ideally, giving Sanchez, Liriano, Dickey, Marcus Stroman, Marco Estrada and JA Happ an extra off-day would help curtail Sanchez’s innings and help heal any nagging injuries (say, like Estrada’s back) anybody else might have.

Still, there was always sense that the decision came with much trepidation and without a true sense of permanence.

“If all six of them are throwing good, (we’ll) keep rolling with it,” manager John Gibbons said at the time. “If someone’s scuffling and we want to change things up, we can do that. We’re just going to roll with this. We like all of them; we’ll see where the hell it goes.”

Where the hell it went was nowhere fast.  And, with Liriano’s relegation to the bullpen last week following the return of Sanchez from a brief sojourn at Single-A Dunedin, the six-man rotation experiment has been mothballed for the time being at least.

That might be for the best.

In the 28 games since Liriano’s insertion into the rotation, the Jays are 15-13 and there have been signs of concern with the club’s starters.
 

SINCE AUGUST 5

 
PLAYER GS W L IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Francisco Liriano 4 2 2 22.2 21 13 10 10 23 3 4.05
Aaron Sanchez 4 2 1 23 23 12 10 8 16 1 3.91
Marcus Stroman 5 1 2 30.2 33 15 13 6 29 3 3.87
R.A. Dickey 5 1 2 26 29 17 15 13 21 2 5.19
Marco Estrada 5 1 3 26 33 20 19 10 22 7 6.58
JA Happ 5 2 1 27.1 29 14 14 8 27 5 4.65
TOTALS 28 9 11 155.2 168 91 81 55 138 21 4.7
 


The first eye-popping stat here is earned run average. The 4.70 starters’ ERA was almost a whole run more than the season average of 3.81, which is good for fourth in the MLB. Estrada’s, in particular, ballooned to just over three more runs more than his 3.58 seasonal ERA.

Also troubling is the fact that all of Estrada, Happ, Dickey and Sanchez had their shortest outings of the season over this stretch with each failing to get out of the fifth at least once. With Estrada, he lasted past the fifth inning just once over his five starts. Some of Estrada’s form is likely due to lingering back issues, but it presents cause for concern, nonetheless.

Now, the Jays are still a first-place team. The sky is hardly falling. You could even argue the Jays' above-average starting pitching numbers were due for a correction and that's what you're seeing now. Yet, the numbers since the six-man experiment began have not been good and the Jays will hope for addition by subtraction going forward.

Perhaps, the Jays can be a cautionary tale to the MLB-best Cubs who are now testing out their own six-man rotation.