Berríos (right elbow inflammation) to visit doctor

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- José Berríos will travel to meet with Dr. Keith Meister on Tuesday, the next step after recent MRIs showed a new type of inflammation in his right elbow.

This inflammation is different from what Berríos dealt with towards the end of the 2025 season, when he landed on the IL for the first time in his big league career. Berríos insists that he feels strong, and it sounds like this wouldn’t have even been raised as an issue in a “normal” spring, but the inflammation was caught while Berríos underwent an MRI for insurance purposes, trying to join Puerto Rico at the World Baseball Classic for the quarterfinal round.

In the meantime, Berríos will stop throwing. For now, the Blue Jays wait and hope for good news.

“This is just wanting to confirm everything,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “It’s always better to be a little more hands-on. We’ll have a play ready for him after Tuesday.”

There are two concerns here, both big-picture and on a smaller scale.

The obvious concern is for the health of Berríos’ elbow. While the initial MRI showed nothing structural and no damage to any ligaments, there’s still not much of a silver lining about elbow inflammation in back-to-back seasons. Pitchers don’t visit Dr. Meister for the fun of it.

As long as Berríos’ elbow is in good shape, and the Blue Jays remain optimistic that’s the case, the next concern becomes Berríos’ ramp-up, which is now on pause. If he’s down from throwing for one week, then he can quickly bounce back into the rotation and be ready for the early weeks of the season, perhaps even his first trip through the rotation. If he needs to back off from throwing for any longer, though, he’ll quickly lose the workload he’s spent the past month-plus building up.

The Blue Jays are already proving the old baseball saying true. You can never have enough starting pitching, and even when it looked like the Blue Jays’ level of starting depth could force some awkward decisions on the roster, one MRI has shifted everything.

As it stands, the Blue Jays could open the season with a rotation of Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage (who’s on a workload limit), Cody Ponce and Max Scherzer. Eric Lauer is also stretched out as a starter, which could be valuable even earlier than we expected.

Shane Bieber is also beginning to pick up some steam in his rehab from forearm fatigue, which delayed the start to his spring. He’s been throwing off flat ground, but Schneider said Friday that the Blue Jays will evaluate him late next week to see if Bieber is ready to get back on the mound. Once that happens, he will begin a normal ramp-up, which should stretch a month or more into the season.