TORONTO -- Another night, another nail-biter for the Blue Jays, but these close games tend to carry a little extra weight against the mighty Yankees with both teams off to such a strong start.
The 3-2 loss gave the Yanks their 10th win in a row as they’ve been on fire since splitting four games with the Blue Jays in the Bronx on April 11-14. This was also another look at Ross Stripling back in the starting rotation, which is a conversation that’s about to have changes approaching on multiple fronts.
With Hyun Jin Ryu set to throw a rehab outing for Triple-A Buffalo on Saturday and Nate Pearson about to ramp up his own rehab from mononucleosis, it’s likely that Stripling will slide back into a bulk-inning hybrid role following his next start. For now, though, he’s focused on working deeper into games after allowing a pair of runs in his fourth and final inning.
“If you look at my outings, the third and fourth innings are a little choppy,” Stripling said. “I think if I can get those clean, my pitch count has been low enough to send me back out, but it’s right there facing the third time through, and that’s when they’re deciding to pull me. The bullpen goes in, does their job and throws up zeros right to the very end to keep us in the game.”
He’s right. David Phelps, Trevor Richards and Adam Cimber threw four perfect innings before Yimi Garcia allowed the winning run to score in the ninth.
“They did a great job again,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “And again, no room for error. We mapped it out great and everybody did their job. We were in the game until the end.”
A well-mapped bullpen game where you allow just three runs to the Yankees should hand the Blue Jays a win, but their lineup continues to battle inconsistencies, especially with runners in scoring position. Going forward, though, Toronto will need to continue to get reliable pitching, which leads to a few questions:
Who is Ryu when he returns?
There’s an uncomfortable question here. Can Ryu get back to who he was earlier in his career? And if not, how close can he get?
The veteran lefty allowed 11 runs over 7 1/3 innings to open the season before he hit the IL, which continued a worrying trend from the latter half of 2021. Last year, Ryu held a 3.41 ERA through June, which the Blue Jays would gladly take now, but he struggled to a 5.45 ERA over his final 16 starts.
Ryu is a pitcher who needs to have his "A" game every night, and he’s spent most of his career doing an exceptional job of just that. Once his control is off, though, he doesn’t have the same luxuries as someone who throws 99 mph instead of 89. With two years and $40 million remaining on his deal, not to mention the track record that earned him that contract, one certainty is that the Blue Jays will still give him every opportunity to figure it out.
Pearson: Still the annual X-factor?
Pearson, the former No. 1 prospect whose 100-mph fastball has tantalized Blue Jays fans for years, is with the club in Toronto and is scheduled to throw a bullpen session on Tuesday after dealing with mononucleosis. He’s essentially starting over, and general manager Ross Atkins said last week that the organization envisions a “bulky” role for him -- think Stripling with a few more ticks on the fastball.
Speaking prior to Monday’s loss, though, one thing Montoyo said stood out.
“He’s still got to pitch good down there to come up here,” Montoyo said. “Our pitching has been outstanding here, so he’s got to go there and pitch.”
The “down there” Montoyo refers to will eventually be Triple-A. The 25-year-old still just owns a 5.18 ERA over 33 career innings, but if the Blue Jays can get Pearson to a point where he’s comfortably throwing 3-4 innings with the ability to shorten or lengthen as needed, his potential remains extremely attractive.
Where is the next wave of depth?
What if something else goes wrong? It’s the question MLB front offices ask themselves 100 times a day, and it’s why you hear managers across the game say each spring that you can never have enough starting pitching.
Bowden Francis, who’s already been up and down a couple of times, would be in consideration, alongside Thomas Hatch and Anthony Kay, if multiple injuries were to hit. In a perfect world, though, Ryu re-establishes himself and leaves the Blue Jays with the eventual luxury of Pearson and Stripling as bulk options, especially given that Stripling has always been built for the role, which seems to grow more valuable by the season.