Blue Jays players react to Stroman's injury: 'It's almost disbelief'

It's been a difficult spring for pitchers and Toronto Blue Jays promising right-hander Marcus Stroman joins Yu Darvish, Cliff Lee, and Gavin Floyd as casualties of preseason injuries.

The news Tuesday that Stroman, the projected ace of the Blue Jays staff, will miss the year with an ACL tear was felt throughout a frustrated fan base in Toronto, stretching like a dark cloud down the coast to the team's spring dwellings in Dunedin, FL.

Blue Jays will be hard-pressed to overcome loss of Stroman

The following are reactions from Blue Jays players and management.

Right-hander Aaron Sanchez: 

He's a huge part of this team. I think we're all kind of taking it hard. I'm taking it a little bit harder, you guys know the relationship that I have with him. But it's one of those things. Tough times don't last, tough people do and I know how strong that kid is. He'll be ready, he'll come back just fine.

Manager John Gibbons: 

We won't get caught up in the team so much right now ... you think about the individual. He's an uplifting guy when he's around, he made everyone else feel better.

It's terrible news. It's terrible for the kid — he's going to lose a year — and it's tough for the team. He's one of our go-to guys. He really came into his own last year and we expected him to have a big, big year.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos:

He’s probably the best athlete on our team. He's the last guy you'd expect that to happen to.

He's a great starter and did a great job for us last year, but you move forward. It's all you can do. We're going to play the season. There's going to be a lot of opportunities for some of the other guys to step up, but no doubt to lose a guy like Stroman is a significant loss for us.

Left-hander Daniel Norris: 

It's almost disbelief. It's just really hard to hear for such a good dude. I'll definitely shed a tear for him. It's tough. You don't want to believe it. All you can do is pray. I told him 'hey man, I'm going to pray for you.'

Right-hander R.A. Dickey:

He is such a sweet kid, man. And he hurts. You can't help but feel like, in some ridiculous way, that you've let down the team even though he had nothing to do with it. As competitors that's the way we feel and for him to carry around something like that is ridiculous.

We're just going to try to rally around him. We know how painful it is for him. He's emotional right now, so we're just going to wrap our arms around him. He still has one fantastic career ahead of him but this is no doubt a sad thing.