MILWAUKEE -- Help is on the way. Finally.
Trey Yesavage threw 71 pitches (42 strikes) in what could be his final rehab start Wednesday as he works back from a shoulder impingement that delayed the start of his season. That pitch count, along with 4 1/3 innings for Triple-A Buffalo, are exactly what the Blue Jays were looking for out of Yesavage on Wednesday.
The results matter very little here, so there’s no need to read into the seven hits and two home runs Yesavage allowed. More important is the fact that Yesavage sat 93-95 mph with his fastball, which should tick up a bit with the adrenaline of an MLB environment, and he got whiffs on all five swings against his splitter.
The Blue Jays still need to see how Yesavage recovers from this outing, and they expect to be closer to a decision to bring him back by Friday, but in terms of the baseline numbers, everything is right where it needs to be. If Yesavage gets the green light, he could rejoin the Blue Jays on this road trip and line up to pitch in the Angels series early next week.
“That’s definitely a possibility,” manager John Schneider said Tuesday. “Whenever you’re getting close, you don’t want to be too knee-jerky, but he’s champing at the bit and it’s right in line with what we’d thought.”
This rotation has already dealt with more adversity than it did in the entirety of 2025, losing Yesavage, José Berríos, Shane Bieber and Cody Ponce early in the year. They’ve also been faced with a flu bug that zapped Eric Lauer’s velocity for a couple of outings and forearm tendinitis to Max Scherzer, which is still a situation that needs to be closely monitored.
Midway through camp, it looked like the Blue Jays would be stuck with an awkward logjam of MLB starters. Just a week into the season, it was already so thin that they were forced to sign Patrick Corbin to a one-year, $1 million deal. Corbin will make one more start in the rotation, but that is likely Yesavage’s spot if this all works out.
This isn’t the only good news, either. Blue Jays fans may find it jarring to receive two pieces of good news at once in 2026, but Berríos is scheduled to throw three innings and roughly 50 pitches Wednesday night with Single-A Dunedin. Berríos is dealing with a stress fracture in his right elbow, but has been cleared to pitch through it and the Blue Jays have been encouraged by the fact he’s touching 95 mph in bullpens.
This would presumably put Berríos one or two starts behind Yesavage on his track back to the big leagues. This could leave the Blue Jays just a couple of weeks away from being back in a surplus, which could then leave them the option of bumping one starter to the bullpen to provide some bulk innings as a swingman. That’s getting further down the line, though, and if the early days of 2026 have taught the Blue Jays anything, it’s to not plan any further than the next few hours.