When will new star Trey Yesavage pitch next for Toronto Blue Jays?
The Toronto Blue Jays found their newest postseason legend on Sunday.
Rising up through the minor leagues at a rapid rate, the Jays’ 2024 first-round draft pick, Trey Yesavage, has been one of the biggest stories of the entire postseason.
Pitching 5.1 no-hit innings and earning a franchise-record 11 strikeouts in a postseason game, Yesavage put up a performance few Blue Jays fans would ever forget.
But as much fun as his Game 2 performance in a win over the New York Yankees was for Blue Jays fans, it’s hopefully one that the youngster will be able to build off of. After all, you don’t win a World Series with just one good performance, but ideally a few strung together over the course of several playoff rounds.
And in a sport where it’s as much about your next game as the last one, fans are already wondering when they’ll get to see their new star again.
When can Yesavage pitch next for the Blue Jays?
Although his first playoff game was historic, Yesavage has actually not been a high-volume pitcher so far in the MLB or the pros as a whole.
One hundred pitches is the rule of thumb that many managers use for when a pitcher might be at his maximum for any given day. Yesavage has averaged 79 through his first four major league starts, pitching just 78 times on Sunday.
As a minor league starter, he faced an average of just 16 batters a night across 25 starts this season, going five innings or more on 10 occasions, and going above 80 pitches on four occasions. It was a plan to help ease him into high-leverage situations, keeping him fresh before what was the biggest game of his life on Sunday.
Technically, Yesavage could suit up for the Jays on Tuesday night, though that’s not likely. Shane Bieber is slated to be the Jays’ starter for their first road game of the playoffs, and while starters can occasionally come in on short rest in the postseason, that’s probably not going to be the case here.
Yesavage hasn’t pitched with at least four rest days all season, so it wouldn’t make sense to mix up the rhythm, even if he might still have some gas left in the tank.
Bieber has averaged 5.2 innings in seven starts as a Blue Jay and has been remarkably consistent in how long he’s pitched so far.
He’s gone at least five innings in every start, but has played more than six innings just once in seven tries. Toronto has used nine different pitchers from their bullpen so far across two games, but they’ve been spreading the action around, with no player facing more than seven batters thus far.
If Toronto wins the series in Game 3 on Tuesday night, Yesavage will have plenty of rest for a Game 1 or 2 start in the ALCS, set for Sunday and Monday.
If that doesn’t happen, things get a little dicier for the Blue Jays.
Toronto opted to carry just three true starting pitchers for this round of the playoffs, meaning a potential Game 4 would likely be a “bullpen game,” with a combination of pitchers being used. Along with Bieber and Yesavage, the Jays also have Kevin Gausman on their roster, who picked up his first postseason win as a Blue Jay during Saturday’s Game 1.
If the Yankees take Games 3 and 4 in New York, Toronto manager John Schneider will have a tough call to make between Gausman and Yesavage for a series clincher on Friday night.
The Jays could conceivably use one as a starter and have the other enter the game as a reliever, though doing so would also likely eliminate them from having a short turnaround time to an ALCS Game 1 start on Sunday.
In any case, the Blue Jays’ best bet to seeing Yesavage on the mound soon again is to win Game 3, and worry about the rest later.
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