Max Scherzer’s forearm injury delivers latest blow to Blue Jays’ depleted rotation
TORONTO — This Blue Jays rotation just can’t catch a break right now.
That’s before even mentioning the troubling developments on the position-player side, too, between Alejandro Kirk’s now surgery-requiring absence and Addison Barger’s uncertainty with a pair of sore ankles. Or even the quartet of starting pitchers — José Berríos, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber, and Bowden Francis (who’d currently be one of the club’s five starters if not for his Tommy John surgery) — that began this season on the injured list.
When it rains, it pours, as they say — and it’s raining pretty heavily on the Blue Jays.
“It seems like right now, the baseball world is trying to throw all of it at us at once,” said manager John Schneider, whose club is already facing plenty of adversity just 10 games into its 4-6 start to the ’26 season.
At first, it seemed the 41-year-old’s departure may have been related to the team-wide illness that’s making its way through the clubhouse right now. But it turned out to be a different kind of bug ailing the future Hall-of-Fame hurler, one that this team has already seen too much of — the injury bug.
Schneider revealed post-game that Scherzer was removed due to right forearm tendonitis, which he alerted the Blue Jays’ training staff about coming out of last week’s start. It’s an issue that he’s actually been dealing with for a “couple of weeks,” but it only recently started affecting him when he pitches.
Given the state of this injury-depleted rotation, this was another gut punch that Toronto’s staff couldn’t afford. But Scherzer was adamant that he could at least offer two or three innings, max 50 pitches, against the Dodgers. And by exiting when he did, his throwing arm isn’t any worse off than where it started before the contest.
“I think the positive side is that it didn’t feel any worse,” Schneider said of Scherzer’s right forearm after Monday’s abbreviated two-inning start. “Max is brutally honest. That’s one of his many great qualities. [I’m] fairly to quite fairly confident he’ll make his next start.”
It was clear early on that something wasn’t right after Scherzer’s four-seamer was sitting 91-92 m.p.h. in the first inning, ultimately averaging 1.3 clicks slower compared to the 93.4-m.p.h. reading from his dazzling season debut against the Colorado Rockies a week ago. Now it all makes sense.
The decision to call it after the second inning was Scherzer’s in the end, as he revealed. He felt this was the best way to ensure he not only avoids a trip to the IL, which he believes won’t be necessary here, but also remains available to make his next start.
All things considered, this isn’t the worst-case scenario for Scherzer and the Blue Jays. It also isn’t great, either. But the veteran right-hander acknowledged that he’s glad that he didn’t push things too far, especially considering he was under strict guidelines to “not hurt yourself” if he were to pitch through this ailment.
Now that he has, the plan moving forward is to treat it with rest and anti-inflammatories, hoping that’ll allow his forearm to “calm down” before his turn comes around again this weekend when the Minnesota Twins visit Rogers Centre for a three-game series.
“I don’t think it’s a major issue, just something that needs to be addressed,” Scherzer said. “But, in my mind, I’m going to be making my next start.”
The Blue Jays’ bullpen has taken the brunt of the rotation’s consecutive premature departures in recent days, forced to cover 14 of the last 18 innings between Sunday and Monday, and 23 of the previous 27 innings since Saturday’s bullpen game in Chicago. That isn’t an ideal strategy at any point during the season, let alone during its first full month.
That brought Toronto’s season total of pitchers used to 18, including the nine relievers deployed in three games since Saturday, tying the franchise record across the first 10 games of a campaign.
At this point, the only fresh relievers down in the ‘pen are Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Rogers and Louis Varland. None of those three has seen any game reps since Friday’s disastrous loss against the White Sox — the lone benefit of being outscored 23-5 over the last three games — thus keeping them available for the final two in this series versus the Dodgers.
Still, considering both Spencer Miles and Mantiply have pitched in consecutive games and Fleming just threw 77 pitches, chances are the Blue Jays’ roster isn’t done churning quite yet. Another fresh arm might already be on its way up from Buffalo, but we won’t know 100 per cent until Tuesday arrives.
Thankfully, unlike last fall’s devastating Game 7 loss to these Dodgers, there’s still lots of baseball left to play. As grim as the current outlook of this rotation is, it’d look even worse without Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease — who’ll start the next two games, respectively — carrying this train at the top.
At a time like this, they can each provide the stability and consistency that the Blue Jays’ rotation is thin on these days. But, to help snap this current losing skid, the offence will also need to start rolling, too. In this era, the pitchers can’t help score runs — unless you’re Shohei Ohtani, of course. They can only keep them off the board.
For a lineup struggling to find that “big hit” with runners on base, though, things aren’t about to become any easier with Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who returns to Toronto for the first time since closing out last year’s World Series on zero days’ rest — and Ohtani due up next.