TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays ran their first bullpen game of the season April 4 at the Chicago White Sox, when they didn’t have someone to backfill after Cody Ponce blew out his right knee, and their improvisation hasn’t stopped since. Thirty-five different pitchers have logged innings already, not including mop-up duty outings by position players Myles Straw and Tyler Heineman, with 14 of them starting a game, including eight by leverage arm Braydon Fisher.
On Wednesday, when the relievers once again step up to cover an absence, this one created by Shane Bieber’s sudden teres major injury, “bullpen day” will move into fourth on the Blue Jays in starts at 16, one more than Patrick Corbin. Only ace Dylan Cease, at a team-leading 24, the traded Kevin Gausman at 23, and recovering from knee surgery Trey Yesavage, at 18, have started more often, as making things up on the go has become the club norm this year.
“It’s the reality of what we’ve been doing the whole season,” said Max Scherzer, an ever more vital part of the rotation who continued a strong return from the injured list with five innings of two-run ball in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals. “We’ve had everybody getting hurt left and right and it’s always been next man up. So, really kind of status quo.”
Added manager John Schneider: “Mentally they’re pretty well conditioned in it. The physical part is where it can kind of catch up with guys that have been here for the whole year and dealing with it. Guys like Flu (Mason Fluharty, who’s made four starts in his major-league high 70 games) and Fish and Louis (Varland, the all-star closer with 66.1 innings in 60 outings). But they’re mentally strong enough to be, ‘OK, this is the next thing to tackle.’ You’ve got to just manipulate it physically as best you can. They’ve done an outstanding job.”
With a 9-6 record in their bullpen days so far, it’s hard to argue, especially given the toll of so much extra work atop an especially heavy dose of usual relief innings. Consider that the Blue Jays have only two pitchers with triple-digit-innings thrown in Cease (144.1) and Gausman (127.1), and that Yesavage is third at 93.2 and fourth at 80.1 is Spencer Miles, the Rule 5 pick who, due to injury, logged only 23.1 innings over the past three years. At 556.1 innings, their bullpen is the fourth busiest in the majors.
With so few sources of reliable innings, the steady stream of injuries that drives the Blue Jays’ constant churn on one end is extended on the other end by the flow of fresh arms necessary to keep the regulars from being run into the ground.
Still, it’s taken substantial efforts from the likes of Fisher, Fluharty, Miles, Varland and Tyler Rogers, the only pitchers on the Blue Jays roster since opening day that have avoided the injured list, to paper over gaps and provide some difference-making innings.
When Schneider talks about pitchers manipulating the physical end to cope, he’s referring to them, among others, needing to “just take care of yourself as much as you can without getting out of your normal day-to-day routine, just understand that there’s probably going to be a little bit more asked of you and monitor yourself before and after games.”
Of course, the more the Blue Jays ask, the more difficult it becomes for them to fight through fatigue and continue performing at their top levels, which is why the offence has a significant role to play, too.
Opening up some games early and creating separation to reduce leverage would allow Schneider to distribute innings more evenly and balance out workload. But scoring enough to do that has been an ongoing challenge, and while the pitching staff has been in steady flux, so too, to a lesser extent, has the position-player group.
Take, for example, a 1-for-11 night with runners in scoring position Tuesday – the one hit coming with two out in the ninth, when Nathan Lukes was thrown out at second to end the game trying to stretch his two-run single. During a 14-8 run beginning July 27 at Washington, the Blue Jays went 54-for-206 for a .262 average with runners in scoring position – even with a 1-for-19 effort in a 3-2, 11-inning loss to the Cubs on Aug. 6. But over their last five outings, they’re just 8-for-63, a dreadful .127 mark, although they still won two of those games thanks to their pitching.
“Hits with runners in scoring position, it comes and goes over the course of the season,” said Schneider. “Depends on who you have up. Depends on who you’re facing. It’s a little bit scattered. It’s a little bit unpredictable. But the last thing I want the guys to do is press in those situations. … It didn’t work out today, but I don’t want them to think about it. It’s baseball and it happens over the course of the season. We just need it to turn around quickly.”
Especially as their ability to prevent runs is being challenged.
The injuries to Yesavage at the beginning of the month and Bieber now not only removed steady innings from the rotation, but upside innings, too. Spencer Arrighetti, who starts Thursday in his second outing back from the IL, and Jameson Taillon, who after a rehab outing with Buffalo on Friday will rejoin the Blue Jays rotation in Cleveland, are both trying to build up on the fly and fill the gap. Chad Dallas, up for the fifth time, can only be optioned to the minors once more without having to pass through outright waivers, which already happened to Lazardo Estrada.
Whatever favours a seemingly light remaining schedule may be offering the Blue Jays is being countered by yet another challenge to a pitching staff that’s been stretched time and time again.
“Losing Shane, he was starting to really throw the ball well, so we’re all frustrated and saddened that he has the teres strain, it stinks, just because you feel for him and you want him to see him out there pitching for us,” said Scherzer. “But next man up. We’ve got to get guys in there and they’ve got to go out there and do a job. We’re in the thick of this and these next guys that have a chance, they get the pitch in a playoff race. Feel good that you’re here and pitching, but we need you to pitch well and we’ve got to win ballgames.”
Added Schneider: “You’ve got to figure out a way to figure it out, you know? It’s tough timing, for sure, just with where we are, number of games and how Shane was throwing, too. We’ve dealt with it before this year. We’ll continue to deal with it. I haven’t said woe is me yet, I’m not going to do it the rest of the way. You’ve got to figure out a way to handle it.”