Source: Steve Buffery, National Post, March 1, 2016
TAMPA, FLA. — Blue Jays manager John Gibbons has a hunch that Hutch has not been a happy camper at spring training, a suggestion Drew Hutchison tries to deflect.
“I just pitch,” Hutchison said after facing the New Yankees at George Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday night. “Circumstances around may change but the process doesn’t. So all of that is irrelevant. I just try to go out there and handle my business.”
Last season, Hutchison was named the opening day starter for the Jays. This season — despite winning 13 games in 2015 — he is one of four guys fighting for the fifth starter role with the club, along with Aaron Sanchez, Jesse Chavez and Gavin Floyd. And that, suggested Gibbons, does not sit well with the Lakeland, Fla., native — who pitched 4.2 innings against the Yankees, giving up a two-run home run to Starlin Castro in the second but was otherwise solid.
“It’s not easy,” said Gibbons. “He won 13 games last year, he won (11) games the year before, he’s really pitched some of the best games I’ve seen pitched in my three years since I returned. So, in a little way, it’s probably a little unfair to him (to have to fight for the fifth spot), and he probably looks at it that way.”