KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Pete Walker was bullpen coach in 2012 when the Toronto Blue Jays lost three starters to major injuries in a span of four games and in his 14 seasons as pitching coach since he’s seen all types of chaos, dire opener-and-a-guy days of 2019 included. So, it’s not just simple recency bias when he describes the way the club’s had to patchwork its way through injury-after-injury this year as his most difficult year yet.
“I think so, for a lot of reasons — obviously the expectations coming in on this team, where we saw ourselves, having to battle through to get to this point right now, it’s fantastic that we're in this position,” he said Saturday, when Jameson Taillon returned to the injured list with elbow inflammation, his season almost certainly over. “But the expectations being so high and dealing with those injuries is difficult. You've just got to find a way to dig deep as a staff, from a player's perspective, and a coach's perspective, to keep coming to the yard every day and finding a way to do everything we can to get a win. And I really do commend the pitchers. They've responded. It's not ideal but we're doing everything we can to give us a chance to win and ultimately get to the post-season.”
The Blue Jays continued their push on that front in spite of the latest flux on their pitching staff, riding 5.2 innings of three-run ball from Max Scherzer and a Kazuma Okamoto go-ahead RBI single in the seventh — after a Bobby Witt Jr. error extended the inning — to a 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals. Okamoto added an RBI double in the third while a Josh Rojas throwing error in the first allowed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to score the game’s first run while Nathan Lukes added an RBI single during a two-run first.
“We’ve come this far, so all we can do is win and then hopefully go to the post-season,” Okamoto said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “That's all we’re thinking about. Every game, just give it our all.”
An eighth win in 10 games pushed them over .500 for the first time since they were 4-3 on April 3 and at 72-71, they also moved into possession of the third wild-card spot as they hold the tiebreaker over the Cleveland Guardians (72-71), 6-0 losers to Detroit. Underlining how wild a turnaround it’s been, the Blue Jays’ playoff odds, which stood at a season-low 4.3 per cent Aug. 5, have surged up to 49.2 per cent, as calculated by Fangraphs.
“There are certain points of the season where you can get down a little bit. There are certain points where you feel good about what you're doing and I think right now is one of those times where you feel good about what you're doing,” said manager John Schneider. “You don't want to take anything for granted. This American League is crazy and it changes every single night. So I think just worrying about us is most important, but it's nice to be in this position, for sure. You battle your asses off to get to this position with (19) games left, so you've got to keep doing what you're doing because what we've been doing has been pretty damn good.”
Doing so around a constant slate of pitching injuries, which began when Cody Ponce blew out his knee 2.1 innings into his first start of the season and hasn’t stopped since, is no small feat, especially given the way the Blue Jays have had to piece game coverage together.
Dylan Cease, in the midst of Cy Young-calibre season, has been vital on that front, leading the team with 156.1 innings. But the traded Kevin Gausman, at 127.1 innings, is the only other Blue Jays pitcher with triple-digit innings this season (Jose Soriano has given them 33 frames since arriving and is at 156 for the season including his work for the Angels) and only Trey Yesavage, on the IL with 93.2 innings, has an outside chance of joining them if he can return in time to log enough work.
Fourth on the team at 85.2 frames is Spencer Miles, the remarkable Rule 5 pick who pitching in a variety of roles has helped hold the staff together, while Patrick Corbin, signed in a pinch after Ponce went down with a teres major strain, is fifth at 80. Mix-and-matching as much as the Blue Jays have through five months is often a recipe for disaster, especially after layer after layer of depth has been stripped down, yet they refused to “succumb to it or give in and we’ve found ways to navigate it,” said Walker.
“It's been a lot of a lot of fill-in and guys in-and-out of the rotation,” he continued. “So as a staff, we've got to do our best to find ways to manipulate the roster and find ways to do our best not to overwork the bullpen. It's been very difficult to do, especially with a lot of high-leverage games. But in general, you take it day-by-day. You do plan initially to have some depth, and when that depth doesn't work out, you got to find some other avenues. I think we've done a really good job of finding other avenues to add some players and to do bullpen days and to get what we can out of the starters that are available.”
Scherzer’s emergence since returning from the injured list July 27 has been vital to the Blue Jays’ surge, his performances getting stronger as his body has built up after being undermined by various ailments at the start of the season.
With 5.2 innings Saturday, he’s now up to 62.2 innings this season, one back of reliever Tyler Rogers for eighth most on the club, and his mid-spring signing for $3 million with up to $10 million in performance bonuses (he’s set to earn the first $1 million once he reaches 65 innings, which should happen in his next start) has become rather prescient given the injuries to Ponce, Yesavage, Shane Bieber, Jose Berrios and Bowden Francis, among others.
“I've always believed in myself. I always knew that if I'm right, if I'm healthy, like I can go get hitters out,” said Scherzer. “So it was just a matter of getting right and getting built up. Even in the process of building up, I talked to some of my guys across the league that I know after I faced them and I was able to have good conversations about where I was actually at, what was it like coming in from the opposite side and they're like, 'Hey, your fastball's got life.' And anytime my fastball's got life, I've got the pitches to be able to pitch.”
He showed that last time out versus the Seattle Mariners, when he struck out 10 over seven innings of one-hit ball, and while he wasn’t as dominant Saturday, Scherzer gave the Blue Jays the length they needed. Spencer Arrighetti, himself still building up from the IL, starts Sunday’s finale while a potential bullpen day looms Wednesday at Sacramento, which Michael Lorenzen could be a key part of if he’s not needed earlier.
“We've got to pitch deep into the games and we've got to stay healthy,” said Scherzer. “You've got to know how your body's doing and really work at your body, recover well, got to do everything you can so that you can turn these starts, go through the rotation. It's going to be difficult, but we've got to go out there and do our job and just find a way to win.”
Using 36 different pitchers, not including position players Myles Straw and Tyler Heineman, the Blue Jays have managed a way to do that, bridging through various absences, down periods from the offence and a thread-the-needle deadline to keep the Blue Jays from capsizing.
Now, in possession of a post-season spot and in full control of their own fate, they need one final push and burst of creativity for the three-week sprint to the finish line.
“Lorenzen did a great job (Friday behind Taillon), he’s made a couple of adjustments since he's been here and he's excited to be a part of this team, he can certainly give us bulk innings and potentially more,” said Walker. “We saw him more in a relief role, but he could definitely fill some innings, quality innings right now, we feel. Arrighetti, we're hoping he steps up. And we've done a good job getting him back to a decent pitch count where he might be able to take off from this point on, so feel good about him. And obviously, Max putting the pedal to the metal and Soriano getting a little bit deeper and Cease being Cease — we have some good options. We just need to get to that high-leverage bullpen. If we can do that, we're going to be in good shape.”
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