TORONTO – All off-season, the Toronto Blue Jays considered how the physical toll of last year’s run to the World Series might impact them this year and sought ways to counter any possible effects. They talked to people around the league in search of advice. They tweaked how certain players were built up during spring training to account for the extra work.
Yet Saturday, as Nathan Lukes became the 12th player placed on the injured list during a roster-churning start to the year, manager John Schneider conceded that he’d be “lying if I said I hadn’t thought about” whether last fall had contributed in some way.
“But then looking at a broken toe, probably not; a broken thumb, probably not; a rolled ankle on the bases, probably not,” he continued. “When you’re talking about some soft-tissue stuff, you’re like, OK, maybe. … So I think a little bit coincidence, but I mean, it could, you know what I mean? It’s an extra month and it’s an extra month of really, really high-stress games. I know some position players were talking at the end of camp about, I usually feel ready 10 days ago and I needed all of spring training to feel ready.”
Despite a remarkable 223.2 innings a year ago, and amid the opening month chaos, the stabilizing force Kevin Gausman provides continues unabated.
The 35-year-old right-hander, who pitched into the sixth inning in each of his first five starts, pushed into the seventh for the first time in Saturday afternoon’s 5-3 win over the Cleveland Guardians, providing vital length after Max Scherzer lasted only 2.1 innings the previous night.
Of course with Gausman, it’s not just quantity but also quality, allowing only a pair of runs, one scratched out on a double and two groundouts in the third, another on a David Fry homer in the seventh after the Blue Jays took control of the game with a three-run sixth.
In between, he held the game in check until the offence knocked out Joey Cantillo and got to Matt Festa for Daulton Varsho’s go-ahead RBI single under the glove of second baseman Juan Brito, and Andres Gimenez’s two-run double.
Kazuma Okamoto’s bases-loaded walk in the seventh, to go with his game-tying solo shot in the fourth and single and run scored in the sixth, made it 5-2 and ensured a low-leverage finish for Tyler Rogers in the eighth. Louis Varland gave up Kyle Manzardo’s RBI double and loaded the bases before collecting his second save in the ninth in place of Jeff Hoffman.
The win ended a two-game losing skid for the Blue Jays (11-15) and gives them a chance to win a second consecutive Sunday, when Patrick Corbin starts against Slade Cecconi in the finale.
That Gausman helped set the Blue Jays right is something the club’s become accustomed to over the past four years of an exceptionally successful $110-million, five-year deal. He made 31 starts in each of his first three seasons in Toronto and 32 last year and is being counted on to provide similar durability this year, which he’s done thus far extra work a year ago be damned.
“Pretty good so far,” is how Schneider described Gausman’s bounce back. “Going back a year before, he said he started his off-season throwing program on Game 4 of the (2024) World Series, so it’s different. There was only a couple-of-week layoff, but I think he’s handled it really well. Knock on wood, he looks about as good as we can hope right now.”