TORONTO — The Blue Jays are getting closer to some “good news” regarding their pitchers. In 2026, that still feels pretty strange.
Max Scherzer took his turn in the Buffalo Bisons’ rotation on Friday night, following Dylan Cease’s rehab start on Thursday and leading up to another Cy Young winner, Shane Bieber, who is set to pitch on Saturday.
Scherzer pitched 3 2/3 innings with 73 pitches, giving up three runs on five hits while walking one and striking out five. Beyond the innings pitched, what stood out most were his velocity readings; his fastball averaged 93.4 mph and peaked at 95.7 mph, which is promising for the 41-year-old.
Getting Scherzer back is just the first step. The Blue Jays are also missing José Berríos (Tommy John) and Cody Ponce (ACL) for the remainder of the season, along with Bowden Francis (Tommy John), who likely would have seen action by now if he were healthy. That’s a whole big league rotation sitting on the Blue Jays’ IL. A good one at that.
Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Patrick Corbin have stepped up admirably, but this injury situation has forced manager John Schneider, pitching coach Pete Walker and the rest of the coaching staff to tackle a new challenge every day.
Before Friday’s game against the Orioles, Schneider could only chuckle and shake his head when asked if they had a starter lined up for Game 2 on Saturday yet.
“Why would we?” Schneider joked.
The next part of this equation is getting Scherzer back to throwing effective big league innings. He’s struggled with injuries over the last two seasons with the Blue Jays-dealing with issues from his thumb to his forearm, elbow and ankle. We’ve seldom seen him pitching close to full strength, but he has posted a 5.99 ERA over 22 starts for Toronto.
The Blue Jays don’t need Scherzer to win another Cy Young Award for his Hall of Fame resume; they just need him to provide more reliable innings. By the time both Cease and Bieber return healthy, having a solid fifth (or sixth…) starter capable of steady performances will be incredibly valuable.
Scherzer has another milestone ahead as well. He landed on the IL just one strikeout shy of being only the 11th pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,500 strikeouts.
If everything goes smoothly in the coming days, we might see Cease rejoin the Blue Jays’ rotation during their upcoming series against the Phillies starting Monday at Rogers Centre.
Cease threw 75 pitches in his rehab outing with the Bisons on Thursday and since he hasn’t missed much time due to his hamstring injury; he should be ready enough. If Cease comes back, expect Toronto to be cautious during his first outing-aiming for around 95 pitches instead of pushing toward 115-before letting him go fully.
“He had a good changeup then kind of turned it into a splitter,” Schneider explained. “Then there’s his fastball shape. [The pitching coaches] do a great job finding chances to adjust some arsenal stuff-maybe going back to more two-seam instead of just four-seam-but that input is coming from him too. We’re listening to him as well.”
For now, Woods Richardson will find himself in bullpen duty. Similar to Spencer Miles, he’ll take on a bulk role covering these bullpen days but as starters return for Toronto; those roles might feel tighter soon.
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