TORONTO -- The Blue Jays are getting dangerously close to a run of “good news” on the pitching front. In 2026, that still feels so unfamiliar.
It was Max Scherzer’s turn in the Buffalo Bisons’ rotation Friday night, the middle man in a string of rehab starts that featured Dylan Cease on Thursday and ends with another Cy Young winner in Shane Bieber on Saturday.
Scherzer threw 3 2/3 innings on 73 pitches, allowing three runs on five hits with a walk and five strikeouts. Outside of the workload, his most important numbers came on the radar gun, where his fastball averaged 93.4 mph and touched 95.7 mph, both encouraging numbers for the 41-year-old.
Getting Scherzer back is the first step. The Blue Jays are also without José Berríos (Tommy John) and Cody Ponce (ACL) for the rest of the season, along with Bowden Francis (Tommy John), who surely would have gotten opportunities by now if he were healthy. That’s an entire big league rotation on the Blue Jays’ IL. A good one, too.
Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Patrick Corbin have performed admirably, but this mess of injuries has forced manager John Schneider, pitching coach Pete Walker and the Blue Jays’ coaching staff to face a new puzzle each day.
Prior to Friday’s game against the Orioles, Schneider could only smile and shake his head when asked if they had a starter scheduled for Game 2 on Saturday yet.
“Why would we?” Schneider joked.
Getting Scherzer back to pitching effective big league innings is the second part of this equation, though. He’s been dragged down by injuries for the past two seasons with the Blue Jays, from his thumb to his forearm, elbow and ankle. We’ve rarely seen Scherzer pitching close to 100%, but the reality is that he’s given the Blue Jays a 5.99 ERA over 22 starts.
The Blue Jays don’t need Scherzer to add a fourth Cy Young Award to his Hall of Fame resume, but they do need more reliable innings from Scherzer. By the time both Cease and Bieber are healthy, a sturdy fifth (or sixth…) starter capable of sturdy, predictable performances will be incredibly valuable.
Scherzer has another milestone waiting for him, too. He hit the IL just one strikeout shy of becoming the 11th pitcher in MLB history to strike out 3,500 batters.
The latest on Cease
If all goes well the next couple of days, we could see Cease slide right back into the Blue Jays’ rotation at some point during their upcoming series against the Phillies beginning Monday at Rogers Centre.
Cease threw 75 pitches in his rehab start with the Bisons on Thursday, and given that he hasn’t missed much time with his hamstring injury, he’s still fairly built up. If Cease returns, expect the Blue Jays to be a bit more cautious in his first outing -- think closer to 95 pitches than 115 -- before taking the reins off.
Next up: The bulk guys
Chad Dallas impressed in his MLB debut Thursday in Atlanta, but he was optioned Friday to make room for old friend Simeon Woods Richardson. The Blue Jays drafted and developed Woods Richardson into their No. 4 prospect before dealing him to the Twins for José Berríos in 2021, so this reunion has been a long time coming.
“He had a good changeup, then kind of turned it into a splitter,” Schneider explained. “Then, his fastball shape. [The pitching coaches] are really good with that, at finding some opportunities to adjust some arsenal stuff. Maybe getting back to more two-seam instead of just four-seam, but that’s coming from him, too. We’re listening to him as well.”
For now, Woods Richardson will call the bullpen home. Much like Spencer Miles, he’ll be used in a bulk role to help cover these bullpen days, but as Toronto’s starters begin to return, those roles could feel the squeeze.