TORONTO – Max Scherzer’s ongoing right thumb issues landed him on the injured list Sunday, leaving the Toronto Blue Jays to consider pushing either Yariel Rodriguez or Easton Lucas into the rotation.
The move came as no surprise after Scherzer made it through just three innings in his club debut Saturday before being forced from the outing by right lat soreness. He said that was directly related to compensating for his thumb and added that “I’ve got to get this (thumb) 100 per cent before I pitch again.”
Lucas, who had been slated to start at triple-A Buffalo, was summoned — as was lefty Mason Fluharty, whose contract was selected to replace fellow lefty Richard Lovelady, who was designated for assignment — as the Blue Jays were forced to tweak their staff on the fly.
Schneider said both Lucas and Yariel Rodriguez, the swingman positioned to step in for Scherzer if he wasn’t ready for the opening day roster, are available out of the bullpen in the days ahead. The rotation vacancy next comes up Friday at the New York Mets, so the Blue Jays will “see where we land after today and the next couple games and go from there.”
“After his last outing in Fort Myers and how he felt the day and day after that led us to set our plan the way we did with the rotation,” Schneider said of Scherzer. “And then everything he did leading up to (Saturday), both from a bullpen session and throwing session on how he was feeling, it kind of just crept up on him a little bit, more so than it had in spring. It was unfortunate that the timing was his first start, third game of the year.”
The 40-year-old right-hander is visiting a hand specialist Monday to determine next steps, but the uncertainty over his thumb resurfaced questions about why the club chose not to carry lefty Ryan Yarbrough, the versatile lefty perfect for such scenarios.
They’ve now thinned out their pitching depth, with Jake Bloss, the centrepiece of the return from Houston for Yusei Kikuchi last summer, someone the Blue Jays “want to probably get off to a good start after turning the corner in the middle of camp … before we start looking at him.”
Fluharty, a fifth-round pick in the 2022 draft, takes over from Lovelady, who allowed four runs in a messy fourth Saturday that included a walk and two-hit batters that turned a 4-2 lead into a 6-4 deficit. The Blue Jays also used five relievers both Thursday and Saturday, necessitating a move.
"Mason's opened a lot of our eyes, especially this year, but going back to last year and then kind of turning the corner in spring,” said Schneider. “Excited for him to get this opportunity.”
Chris Bassitt did the Blue Jays bullpen a solid by stretching to 106 pitches over six innings, leading the way in a 3-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. He said that with the uncertainty around Scherzer’s thumb, he readied himself for the potential of absorbing innings behind him in the rotation and that he, Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman and Bowden Francis can help paper over the IL stint.
“He doesn't need to be battling stuff, we know that, and we can make up for it,” said Bassitt. “Whenever he can come back and help us out, that's when we need him, but he doesn't need to be out there just to go out there. He brings plenty to the team just by being in the dugout. We definitely want him on the mound, but we need Max to be Max. Gausie, Berrios, me, Bowden have all done a really good job of getting ready for this. Now it's just, let's rock-and-roll.”
LEVERAGE YARIEL
Yariel Rodriguez’s versatility is an asset and he may yet end up in the rotation, but the impressive eighth inning he threw against the Orioles certainly left the Blue Jays asking themselves if he’s perhaps better off used in a leverage role.
“We were just talking about it,” said John Schneider. “You don't want to be a reactionary, you know that you have that, but it's nice to see it in real-time. We'll continue to talk about it until Friday, I guess is the best way to answer that. If it looks like that, that's pretty good late in the game. We'll see how it lands. It could be something like that. It could be a couple innings of that. We'll talk with him. We want to make sure he's comfortable. That was really encouraging.”
Rodriguez was up to 98.2 m.p.h. with a fastball that sat 96.8, using his slider to strike out Ryan Mountcastle and a sinker to get Jackson Holliday after Tyler O’Neill flew out and Cedric Mullins singled.
Catcher Tyler Heineman described Rodriguez’s outing as “electric,” and he mentioned to pitching coach Pete Walker that the Mountcastle slider “was better than any slider I've seen him throw all spring, and I caught a good amount of him.”
"I thought his mentality was that of attacking,” added Heineman. “I don't really know what his mentality is as a starter, maybe setting up pitches and setting up hitters. But right there … every single pitch was 'here's my best stuff, try and hit it.' For me, it looked kind of effortless and really crisp.”
Rodriguez pitched in leverage with the Chunichi Dragons in Japan before coming over and being stretched out as a starter last year, so the eighth inning was a familiar spot for him.
While “I always like to be in the rotation,” he said that, “if the decision is to keep me in the bullpen, I've done that before, and I'm ready for that, too.”
His approach to leverage is pitching with an “all-out mentality,” Rodriguez added through interpreter Hector Lebron. “It's just one inning so it's different than when you're starting. I have a killer mentality when I come out in the eighth inning because obviously that means we're winning by one or two runs, I have to hold that lead and so mentality-wise, I'm a killer.”
LONG-TIME COMING
While Jeff Hoffman made his Blue Jays debut in Saturday’s 9-5 loss to the Orioles, he had his first real moment Sunday, closing out the series-splitting victory with a clean ninth inning.
Originally drafted by the Blue Jays in 2014, he was traded to Colorado as part of the package for Troy Tulowitzki a year later, embarking on a long baseball journey before rejoining the Blue Jays on a three-year, $33-million deal in January.
"When you're able to lock down a win, no matter when it is or where it is, it's always an unbelievable feeling,” said Hoffman. “We had Bass and Yari, everybody went out and did their job. All I'm trying to do at that point is do my job so I don't mess anything up. It felt nice to be in a tight game with this new group.”
Andres Gimenez helped him out by ranging up the middle to snag Ramon Urias’ grounder and relaying to first for the out to start the ninth. And then after pinch-hitter Heston Kjerstad waved over a splitter for the second out, Hoffman engaged in a 10-pitch duel with Gary Sanchez, finally fooling him with a chase slider to secure the win.
“I'm trying to not let counts get that deep, but once we got to 3-2 and he had been battling pretty good, fouling some stuff off, I just felt like my bread-and-butter is throwing a slider that looks like a strike for a long time and hopefully ends up out of the zone,” said Hoffman. “In a situation like that, I know that guy wants to swing the bat, so when Heinie came out and talked about it, I was like, I think we just have to throw a strike-to-ball slider here and let him swing over the top of it.”
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