Why Aaron Sanchez shouldn't have started the ninth in Blue Jays' loss

Aaron Sanchez was pitching the best game of his burgeoning major-league career Tuesday night. The Blue Jays' 23-year-old right-hander had thrown eight shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers, allowing one hit, one walk, and striking out 12.

It was a masterful performance, accomplished efficiently on 93 pitches. And he shouldn't have been sent back to the mound by John Gibbons to pitch the bottom of the ninth inning with the Blue Jays up 2-0.

Say what? Sanchez's pitch count was low and he was so close to throwing a complete game shutout! Well, take this into account: pitchers become less effective the more often hitters see them during a game. Here's the average OPS against for American League pitchers since 2011 when going through an opposing batting order for the first, second, third, and fourth times.

Sanchez's personal splits (admittedly still a small sample through 23 career starts) tell a similar story, except his OPS against spikes dramatically the fourth time through the order.

Undeterred by history, Gibbons stuck with Sanchez in the ninth. It didn't take long for it to unravel. Sanchez gave up a single to No. 9 hitter Jose Iglesias and then a double to leadoff man Ian Kinsler that scored Iglesias to bring the Tigers within one and end Sanchez's outing. Roberto Osuna entered the game with Kinsler on second base. Following a sacrifice bunt by Andrew Romine, Miguel Cabrera drove in Kinsler to tie the game. Osuna got out of the inning, but it only postponed Toronto's misery. Kinsler hit a walk-off single off Joe Biagini in the 10th and the Blue Jays lost 3-2.

Baseball is the greatest second-guess game, and the second-guess is always right. But in this case the numbers back it up.

The most recent high-profile example of this came in the World Series last year when Mets manager Terry Collins kept Matt Harvey in Game 5 up 2-0 in the ninth to face the middle of the Royals' lineup for the fourth time. Harvey walked Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer brought Cain home with an RBI double. Closer Jeurys Familia was brought in to replace Harvey but even though he didn't allow a ball out of the infield Kansas City still tied it. The Royals, of course, won the game, and the championship, in extra innings. Sounds familiar?

The margin of error is slim in a tight game. A manager's job is to put his players in the best position to succeed. Gibbons didn't do that Tuesday night in Detroit. Sanchez, no matter how well he was pitching, was in tough with the Tigers' lineup flipping over again in the ninth. And when it didn't work out, it put Osuna in a difficult spot by having to come in with a runner, the tying run in this specific situation, already in scoring position.

Now if the Blue Jays' bats had been able to pad their lead, then giving Sanchez the opportunity to close it out himself is a different conversation. However, Toronto went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, and while it's easy to lament what they should have done earlier in the game, the reality is those much-needed insurance runs never came across. There's no guaranteeing that the ninth inning debacle would have been avoided if Sanchez had been taken out for Osuna to start, but it would have been the statistically prudent decision. Gibbons and the Jays have to live with the result, though, which turned out to be as rough a loss a big-league team can experience in early June.

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Israel Fehr is a writer for Yahoo Canada Sports. Email him at israelfehr@yahoo.ca or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr