TORONTO — For the second series in a row, the Blue Jays have the luxury of setting up their rotation exactly how they want it.
It’s a luxury the Mariners don’t have after their 15-inning marathon Friday night to punch their ticket to the American League Championship Series. Sure, the best-laid plans can go sideways in an instant, but the Blue Jays’ starting point is a more comfortable one, and as this series expands from a best-of-five to a best-of seven, Toronto has pivoted.
Trey Yesavage will follow Kevin Gausman as the Game 2 starter after his dominant postseason debut on Oct. 5 against the Yankees, when he struck out 11 over 5 1/3 innings of no-hit ball. Even if Yesavage hasn’t been around long, making just three starts in late September after climbing through every level of the Minor League system, he has immediately proven he belongs. He might be the most talented pitcher on the roster right now, and since he’s the new kid on the block, Yesavage has the element of surprise working in his favor, too.
This is all new to Yesavage, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Besides, the kid has the best mentors a young starter could hope for in the Blue Jays’ veteran rotation.
“Every single one of them has talked to me in their own way, and everyone has different messages, but they’ve really made this outlook on playoff baseball a lot smaller than what it is from the outside,” Yesavage said. “It’s still just baseball, still a game, and I’ve got to go out there and treat it as such. There shouldn’t be more pressure, or you shouldn’t be freaking out about who’s in the box or whatever it is.”
The last time we saw Yesavage, he was making the long, slow walk from the Blue Jays’ dugout to the bullpen in Game 4 on Wednesday against the Yankees. It looked like manager John Schneider was getting ready to press the big, red button by bringing in Yesavage in relief to seal the series, but after Toronto clinched, Schneider finally admitted that was never the plan. It was all for show.
“When I was walking down there, I was trying not to smile,” Yesavage said. “I was trying to act locked in.”
Following Yesavage will be Shane Bieber in Game 3, looking to bounce back from a tough 2 2/3-inning start against the Yankees in Tuesday’s Game 3 of the ALDS. But Game 4 is once again where this starts to get interesting.
Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt have been added to the roster for this series, replacing relievers Tommy Nance and Justin Bruihl. The two veterans stayed hot over the past week despite not being included on the ALDS roster, throwing a simulated game back in Toronto against Bo Bichette, Ty France, Joey Loperfido and a handful of other Blue Jays players not on the roster.
“They were awesome,” Schneider said. “Even to stay back here and pitch in a sim game, then they flew out for the game after that. They were involved in everything. They were so professional about it. They stayed locked in, did what they had to do physically to feel a bit better and keep themselves ready. They were still an integral part, even though they weren’t on the roster.”
For now, Bassitt will be available out of the bullpen and ready for anything. Schneider’s catchphrase about Bassitt over the years has always been “Chris does weird well,” so if there’s one starter the Blue Jays would trust to ramp up quickly as a reliever, it’s the rubber-armed veteran.
“Keeping Max a little bit more geared toward length or a start,” Schneider said, “but these games can get hairy in a hurry, so they’ll both be available whenever we need them.”
Scherzer has experience doing both, of course, because he has experience doing just about everything in baseball. Five of his 30 career postseason appearances have come in relief, most recently with the Dodgers in the 2021 NLDS against the Giants.
A Game 4 start still feels like Plan A for the Blue Jays and Scherzer, though. Schneider said that Scherzer feels even better than he did a month ago, which was when his numbers clearly turned for the worse down the stretch.
This is still a puzzle, though, for Schneider and Pete Walker to put together each night. Even teams that sweep a series have a few things go wrong, so the Blue Jays will eventually need to run down their list of options. But once again, they enter the series with the advantage of a great starting point.
