TORONTO — Placing Bowden Francis on the injured list and parting ways with struggling reliever Erik Swanson, the Toronto Blue Jays repositioned their pitching staff during this crucial period of internal stock-taking ahead of the July 31 trade deadline.
The corresponding moves brought Paxton Schultz back from triple-A Buffalo and put him in the bullpen along with lefty Justin Bruihl, who’s capable of throwing multiple innings. But of greater consequence is that Eric Lauer now starts Wednesday versus Arizona, perhaps the beginning of some run for the lefty in the rotation, while Spencer Turnbull is set up for bulk-work Friday against the Chicago White Sox.
Factor in that Max Scherzer — slated to throw 70-75 pitches in a rehab start for Buffalo at Worcester on Wednesday — could return next week if all goes well and suddenly the Blue Jays have a pathway to some better back-end-of-the-rotation stability.
Notably, the Blue Jays are 9-4 during the bullpen days they’ve used to cover Scherzer’s spot since he left his first start of the season March 29 with lat soreness triggered by his thumb issues, but just 4-10 in Francis’ starts.
Anything better than Francis’ 6.05 ERA, then, is an immediate upgrade, with some runway before the deadline to determine if Scherzer’s thumb can handle the attrition of starts every five days.
At the same time, the Blue Jays can give Francis time to recover from a right shoulder impingement that manager John Schneider said had bothered the right-hander for the past two or three starts, and also an opportunity to work through his problems on the mound.
Imaging revealed inflammation but no structural damage, said Schneider, and he wouldn’t correlate the shoulder issues to Francis’ struggles, since “like a lot of pitchers, they’re dealing and grinding through things and it wasn’t enough to hold him out.”
“Hopefully this gets him back to feeling 100 per cent and if that has a direct reflection or impact on his stuff or his location, we’ll kind of see,” added Schneider. “But it got to the point to where it was bugging him a little bit and wanted to see what was going on.”
A healthy Scherzer and a better Francis would dramatically reshape the Blue Jays’ starting depth during a deadline that may be relatively thin on starting pitchers, although that could change in the weeks ahead.
Other emerging options include Canadian lefty Adam Macko, who’s made two starts for Buffalo since returning from spring knee surgery, while Alek Manoah threw another live batting practice Tuesday, reaching 21 pitches and touching 94 m.p.h., according to Schneider. Depending on the pace of his buildup and whether there are hiccups, he could potentially become a possibility in August or September.
The better that develops, the more options the Blue Jays have to focus on other areas of the roster before July 31.
The bullpen is one intriguing area as it’s already evolved significantly from the one that broke camp.
After bouncing between roles in the spring and early season, Yariel Rodriguez has found his form in leverage, helping paper over the absence of Yimi Garcia, who threw another bullpen Monday and is slated for some live BP on Thursday in Florida. Mason Fluharty has emerged as a dependable medium-to-high leverage arm, while Braydon Fisher has offered some of the mid-range innings work the Blue Jays had hoped to get from Nick Sandlin, who gave up a run on two hits and two walks in his latest rehab outing Tuesday for Buffalo, and Swanson.
The 31-year-old right-hander, a vital late-inning leverage arm for the Blue Jays in 2023, has fought through elbow and forearm issues the past two years, failing to get his stuff or his performance back to peak levels.
Designating him for assignment made for a “tough conversation with him (Monday) and (Tuesday), saw him today before he left,” said Schneider. “The guy’s been through a lot, obviously, the last couple of years, both on and off the field and a guy that we all, myself especially, hold in a very high regard as a person. Kind of happens in the game when things aren’t going your way. He understands that part of it. It’s still hard to move on from a guy that’s meant a lot for you the last couple years.”
But with no signs of him turning the corner — he allowed nine runs on eight hits and five walks with three strikeouts in 5.1 innings over six games — and the Blue Jays “in a different spot than we were last year,” according to Schneider, there wasn’t time and opportunity to let him try to figure out a way out of his struggles.
So, the Blue Jays pitching staff gets a different look for an evaluative period that will help define areas of need and areas of opportunity for the deadline days ahead.
