Blue Jays Manager Provides Positive Injury Updates on Two Critical Pitchers
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The Toronto Blue Jays entered spring training and wrapped up the offseason with a pitching staff that on paper looked like one of the deepest in all of baseball and could carry the team.
As seems to be the case every single year though, an injury nobody knew about popped up early in camp with re-acquired ace Shane Bieber dealing with arm fatigue and delaying his start to the ramp up process. This was revealed after it was also found out that Bowden Francis will miss the season.
All of the sudden, Toronto was in need of someone like José Berríos -- who they tried to trade this winter but couldn't because of his contract -- to step up, however Berríos also obviously dealt with injury last year before his dramatic playoff departure from the team.
In an update on both Bieber and Berríos though, manager John Schneider seemed to express optimism that each will be just fine with Berríos even fully ready to go for the season.
Blue Jays Exercising Caution with Bieber as Berríos Gets Back Healthy
"Biebs isn’t that far behind. Biebs is throwing and feeling good. He’s out to 120 feet," Schneider said on the former Cy Young winner. "Hopefully in the next week to two weeks, he’ll be getting off the mound and starting his progression. There are options coming, too."
Bieber himself last week said something along the lines of taking it slow and smart with the knowledge that how he finishes the season is more important than how he starts. While it does seem like he will miss time, he was always going to be on an innings restriction and perhaps could only miss the start of the year.
As for Berríos, the update from Schneider was nothing but positive, revealing not only his fully health, but also that his stuff is more impressive than it has been for the last year or so for Toronto.
"José is fully healthy. He’s looked sharp," Schneider said. "His stuff is back to where it was probably two years ago in terms of velocity and his breaking ball. He changed his breaking ball a bit to make it a little bigger, so I love that guys are trying to evolve a bit, too."
How Blue Jays Rotation Likely Looks to Begin Season
With Bieber all but certain to miss the start of the season and Francis out for the long haul, it seems Toronto's rotation is going to be built more out of need than depth and ability to go with the best arm possible.
Dylan Cease and Kevin Gausman are locked in at the top with Trey Yesavage coming in right behind them as he gets set for his rookie year. Beyond the top three, it will likely be some sort of combination featuring Berríos, Cody Ponce as well as Eric Lauer.
The Blue Jays still have the potential to have a great rotation this year especially when Bieber does come back, however it may be a little bit more of a process than fans had hoped for at the start of the year.
Still, it seems things are trending in the right direction as Toronto figures out what the staff will look like right out of the gate.
Michael Brauner is a 2022 graduate of the University of Alabama with a degree in Sports Media. He covers various MLB teams across the On SI network and you can also find his work on Yellowhammer News covering the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers as well as on the radio producing and co-hosting 'The Opening Kickoff' every weekday morning on 105.5 WNSP FM in Mobile, Alabama.