TORONTO -- Trey Yesavage underwent surgery on his left knee to repair his meniscus, cleaning up an injury he suffered recently in Houston.
Even here in August, the Blue Jays aren’t closing the door on Yesavage returning in 2026, either.
“He’s week to week. We’re not ruling him out for the year,” manager John Schneider said.
Yesavage injured his knee warming up for an inning against the Astros on Aug. 4, reporting a pinching feeling and that he wasn’t fully able to stabilize his knee. This is Yesavage’s lead leg down the mound, needed for a strong base in his delivery.
The Blue Jays will need to let Yesavage focus on rehabbing in the short term, but by the end of September, they’ll need to get a sense for whether they’ll be pushing him to ramp up for the stretch run or easing him off. The Blue Jays’ place in the standings matters here, too, as they’ll likely need to remain involved in the AL Wild Card race if they are going to speed up Yesavage’s timeline.
“In the next couple of weeks, we’ll know,” Schneider said. “The meniscus is weird. Sometimes, it can be fairly quick depending on how the person responds to it. I don’t want to say I’m ‘very optimistic,’ but I like the fact it’s not the year. We know he’s going to get back to throwing again.”
This is just another injury in a long, frustrating season for the Blue Jays. On top of Cody Ponce, José Berríos and Bowden Francis being lost for the year, the Blue Jays have also gone extended stretches without Shane Bieber and Max Scherzer. In Monday’s series opener against the Red Sox, Jameson Taillon left his start with an injury, too, and was placed on the 15-day IL Tuesday with right forearm tendinitis.
In Spring Training, we spent so much time talking about the Blue Jays having too many starting pitchers, and that storyline was quickly forgotten. Even last week, Toronto planned to pivot to a six-man rotation and had Spencer Arrighetti working his way back from a nerve issue in his foot as a seventh option, but that conversation has changed again.
“It doesn’t last very long,” Schneider joked. “It’s tough. Usually, you’re going through it once. When you’re going through it sporadically, it seems like injuries are happening in bunches or you get someone, then you lose someone. This is tough, but you’ve got to get creative. It taxes the bullpen, for sure, but you’ve got to figure out a way to do it. If it’s guys here, great. If it’s guys who aren’t here right now who need to step in for some innings, great.”
Simeon Woods Richardson is one option to take the vacant spot in the Blue Jays’ rotation along with some combination of Lazaro Estrada, Chad Dallas and CJ Van Eyk, who are all capable of starting but have worked in bulk roles with the big club. Righty John Klein, acquired from the Twins in the Jeff Hoffman deal, could be another option.
There’s no replacing Yesavage, though. His 2025 debut set the bar unreasonably high, but he’s still posted a 3.65 ERA over 93 2/3 innings. Returning in ‘26, even if it’s only briefly, will help to build Yesavage’s workload and give him a better baseline to approach 180-plus innings in ‘27.