TORONTO – The American League Division Series roster puzzle began taking shape for the Toronto Blue Jays with the naming of Kevin Gausman as their Game 1 starter, although how exactly the club planned to line up for the New York Yankees remains somewhat in the air.
Manager John Schneider delivered the expected news on Friday ahead of the team’s final workout before the best-of-five series opens Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre (on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT). He added that the club was “still working through” who follows the ace right-hander, whether to carry 14 position players and 12 pitchers or split the roster 13-13, and extended the subterfuge around the status of Bo Bichette, who remains “day-to-day” while “trying to do more every single day.”
Given that Bichette hadn’t yet tested himself running or hit velocity, his inclusion on the post-season roster seems unlikely, especially since Schneider said that “for him to be on, he’d have to play pretty regularly.”
“Just with the way we deploy our guys, we don’t want to deviate too much from what we’ve been doing,” the manager continued. “So it’s not saving him for a Kirk Gibson at-bat once a game that may not come. He’d have to be pretty regular in some capacity.”
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Watch Blue Jays in ALDS on Sportsnet
The Toronto Blue Jays’ post-season journey begins Saturday against the Yankees, with Game 1 of the ALDS at Rogers Centre. Catch the action on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, starting at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT.
The final verdict there won’t likely impact how the roster is split, but how the pitching staff is set up behind Gausman certainly will, as the Blue Jays weigh whether there’s more utility in a 13th arm or a 14th position player.
A Yankees lineup that can feature six left-handed hitters probably makes carrying Mason Fluharty along with Brendon Little and Eric Lauer a necessity, but no matter which way they land, important contributors will be left off the roster.
That’s a good problem to have, especially if they advance to the next round and need to survive the attrition of post-season play. First things first, though, is the stern test offered by the Yankees, who finished with the same 94-68 record during the regular season as the Blue Jays, winners of the AL East by virtue of capturing the season series 8-5.
Gausman was integral to that success with the Blue Jays winning three of his four starts against the Yankees, including a 7-1 victory at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 5, when the 34-year-old allowed one run on four hits and a walk with five strikeouts over eight dominant innings.
Replicating that success in Saturday’s opener would help contour the rest of the series in the Blue Jays’ favour, but an important element in play will be how the familiarity between the rivals factors into the outcome.
With Gausman, essentially a two-pitch pitcher, in particular, there aren’t many surprises in store for opponents, making his outings all about execution.
As he noted with a grin, “I didn’t come up with a knuckleball the last couple days.”
“Yeah, the book is out on me,” he continued. “These guys kind of know what they’re going to get. There are different ways where I can kind of throw a wrinkle into their mind, but I’m going to throw my best two pitches, and I’m going to throw them a lot. If I can throw my fastball to where I want to and locate my split when I need to, I feel pretty confident that I can get any righty or lefty out in the game.”
Time and again he’s shown that, which is why he drew the assignment, which puts him position to also start a decisive fifth game, if necessary.
Chris Bassitt, who reported no issues with his back after pitching in Thursday’s intrasquad game, is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Gausman, using seven different pitches to keep opponents guessing.
The way his teammate does it “makes it much harder, just because you have to have both of them working,” Bassitt explained. “I give him a lot of credit for being able to do it.”
He also praised Gausman’s adaptability in outings, addressing issues “by changing up looks, changing up locations, things like that.” At the same time, “the more you see a guy, the more likely you are to have success, in my opinion. It is what it is.”
That applies to relievers, as well.
Closer Jeff Hoffman, for instance, appeared in seven of the 13 regular-season games against the Yankees, recording five saves and one loss while allowing a run on five hits and a walk with six strikeouts in seven innings.
“Both sides,” he noted, “will be using all the information we’ve gathered throughout the year and it does become an execution game. But even watching the (Wild Card) games on TV, you see different pitchers use different sequences and get guys out differently than you have all year. So different ideas can come from watching the games and the experiences you’ve had against that batter. … We have an unbelievable staff in the pitching room and we pretty much watch all the at-bats we’ve had against all these guys before the series starts, so we have a pretty good idea of what we’re trying to do.”
Perhaps their most obvious focal point will be Aaron Judge, the AL MVP contender who hit 53 homers and posted a cartoonish 1.114 OPS that was 130 points better than Shohei Ohtani’s outlandish 1.014.
In each of the last three seasons, the Blue Jays have intentionally walked Judge more than any other team, and while they get more opportunities than most, being in the same division, it’s clearly a strategic approach.
This year, of Judge’s 36 intentional passes, seven were issued by the Blue Jays. Meanwhile, last year, they had five of his 20, while in 2023, they dished out four of his nine.
Schneider insisted he doesn’t have any hard and fast rules on when to do it, since “every situation is a little bit different.”
“He’s really good. It’s not a foregone conclusion that it’s going to be a home run or anything like that,” he said. “You just trust guys in certain spots and if there’s a way to limit the times he does swing and potentially impact the ball, that’s a benefit for us. But there’s no set of rules to say when and when not to.”
How they’ll approach it in Game 1 will be discussed during Saturday’s pre-game meeting, with Gausman noting that the calls will be Schneider’s decision.
“If there’s an open base and it’s late in the game, we’re probably going to do that. That’s the nature of the beast,” he added. “He’s a guy that can beat you with one swing. He’s one of the best players in the game. At the same time, you always want to go after guys, so it’s kind of that double-edged sword.”
As is so much when it comes to the drama in October, when the stakes rise, with the intrigue to match.
