TORONTO – At each step since Max Scherzer’s thumb issues first flared up again some three weeks ago, good day or bad, the veteran right-hander has made it clear that the problem was far from resolved.
Exactly one week ago, for instance, when he threw 62 pitches over four shutout innings against the Minnesota Twins in his final spring start, topping out at 94.7 m.p.h. with a fastball that sat 93.3, he stressed that “everybody’s trying to figure out how to manage this.”
During Wednesday’s Toronto Blue Jays workout ahead of Opening Day, he was even more blunt, saying, “I’m still going through it,” forcing him to “change everything up, change all the treatment on it, I am having to back up bullpens, having to change how I throw. Heck, even opening a water bottle, I have to do that left-handed.”
Even more ominously, he later added: “How you grip the ball is critical to your arm health. My arm is built to hold a baseball a certain way, squeeze the ball a certain way. When that’s affected, the rest of your arm is picking up slack because of the lack of strength that you have in your thumb. … It affects your whole arm … all the way into even to your shoulder, into the lat, too.”
Little surprise, then, that his much-anticipated Blue Jays debut was cut short Saturday after just three innings, right lat soreness forcing him out of what finished as a 9-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
The severity of the injury wasn’t immediately clear, but as manager John Schneider worked through a five-reliever day that will reverberate for the next few games, questions on why the club declined to carry lefty Ryan Yarbrough – perfect for just this scenario – resurfaced.
As well, the ongoing uncertainty around Scherzer’s status also underlines the risk the club took in making a $15.5-million, one-year bet that the 40-year-old still had some upside left.
And, given the Blue Jays’ lack of starting depth, any absence won’t be easy to paper over, although the club built up Yariel Rodriguez, who pitched in relief Thursday but not Saturday, during spring just in case.
That the Blue Jays found themselves in this spot was made all the more surprising as before the game, Schneider said Scherzer “has been rip-roaring ready to go the last couple of days,” quipping, “so, Mad Max engaged. He’s on.”
He didn’t look it from the outset, his second pitch of the game was a 91.6 m.p.h. fastball that Colton Cowser hammered 417 feet to centre field. Two batters later, Jordan Westburg crushed a slider that hung middle-middle 434 feet to centre.
Scherzer rallied to retire the final seven batters he faced, but his fastball velocity topped out at 93.4 – his average last time out – while he sat 92.5.
Once he left, the 4-2 lead the Blue Jays had just taken on Andres Gimenez’s two-run homer in the bottom of the third immediately unravelled before a paid attendance of 27,005. Richard Lovelady took over and went double, strikeout, hit batter, hit batter, sacrifice fly, walk and three-run double to No. 9 hitter Ramon Urias.
That put the Orioles up 6-4. They tacked on two more against Jacob Barnes in the fifth to pad their lead and never looked back.
All of which wasted a solid day at the plate by the Blue Jays, led by the Gimenez homer plus four hits and a walk from Bo Bichette, who continues to regularly find barrels.
