{"id":744149,"date":"2026-06-18T09:11:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744149\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T09:11:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:11:34","slug":"blue-jays-make-most-of-surprise-bullpen-day-to-blank-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744149\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays make most of surprise bullpen day to blank Red Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2013 The fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants approach injuries have forced the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> to take with their starting rotation is no biggie to set-up man Tyler Rogers<\/a>. In 2023, he was part of a San Francisco Giants team that led the majors with 705.1 relief innings and had only three pitchers reach triple-digits in frames logged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amid the chaos, that pitching staff made it work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had, like, two starters for the whole year (Logan Webb and Alex Cobb) \u2013 it was crazy,\u201d said Rogers, which is why the Blue Jays\u2019 recent stretch with three starters \u201cfelt not as crazy as that, so that’s good. And then in New York (with the Mets last summer), we didn’t have a lot of starters, either. So for me, that was nothing different than anywhere else I’ve been. And that’s the message I tried to share, like, look, this is part of a baseball season. Weather this little storm and we move on. It’s not going to last long all season, I don’t think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Max Scherzer\u2019s return to the injured list Wednesday<\/a>, a mere week after he came off it, ended the Blue Jays\u2019 brief respite from bullpen days, although Shane Bieber\u2019s next outing could be in the majors, so they may be back to a five-man rotation next time through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, on Day 2 of 16 games in 16 days, the toll of a seven-man effort featuring Braydon Fisher opening for the fifth time, Simeon Woods Richardson delivering three innings of bulk and Jeff Hoffman, Rogers and Louis Varland each pitching a second straight day in a 3-0 win over the Boston Red Sox makes navigating the next two weeks even more complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ve got to use everybody and you’ve got to be pretty deliberate with what the game state is,\u201d manager John Schneider said of the challenge. \u201cYou’re always trying to win the game at hand and you go, OK, do you go forward or do you ask guys to kind of pick up some innings and leverage that they normally wouldn’t? You’ve got to gauge that out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are going to be a handful of those games throughout this stretch where it could be someone not used to the eighth inning pitching the eighth in a one-run game or something like that. You’ve got to use everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The just-recalled Chad Dallas and Tommy Nance were the only relievers who didn\u2019t pitch in the Blue Jays\u2019 second straight win at Fenway Park, which makes it possible there\u2019s another move coming ahead of Thursday\u2019s series finale.<\/p>\n

At the same time, their flexibility is somewhat limited as the optionable relievers aside from Dallas, who\u2019s fresh and offers length, aren\u2019t going anywhere, so they may need to soon churn through their depth. Bieber, who made another rehab start at triple-A Buffalo on Wednesday and may be ready for his next turn, and Yimi Garcia, throwing for the second time in three days with the Bisons on Thursday, are on the cusp and may alleviate some of those concerns.<\/p>\n

Either way, their asset management will need to be deft in the coming days, as someone like Woods Richardson, acquired two weeks ago amid direr circumstances, is out of options but has now thrown seven shutout innings over two outings and offers vital length.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays have been \u201cfull of ideas\u201d for him since he arrived having pitched to a 7.74 ERA in 12 outings with the Minnesota Twins, reworking the shape of his splitter prime among them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re giving me the confidence again to realize who I am as a pitcher,\u201d he said, which is \u201cbeing aggressive, attacking the zone, being efficient at times, knowing when you have to be smart at times. Being a competitor that I always am, hopefully that’s never going to change. But getting back to putting myself in competitive ABs. Always trying to give the team a chance to win. We did a great job tonight. Bullpen helped out tremendously.\u201d<\/p>\n

More offence, easing the burden on the Blue Jays\u2019 leverage arms, would help, and they clawed out enough to keep this game in medium leverage.<\/p>\n

Davis Schneider played catalyst in the third, as after ending the second with a sliding grab of a Marcelo Mayer blooper to left that saved a run, he opened the inning with a double. A single by Andres Gimenez brought him home, and after he stole second and third, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a>\u2019s groundout scored him to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n

They added on in the eighth when Gimenez singled, stole second, took third on George Springer\u2019s flyout to left and scored when Guerrero\u2019s blooper to short right touched green.<\/p>\n

Gimenez missed Sunday\u2019s 8-3 loss to the Yankees after slamming his left wrist into the base sliding in for a single Saturday, but returned with a homer and a double in Tuesday\u2019s 6-1 win over the Red Sox, when power drove the production.<\/p>\n

Being able to score in different ways \u201csays a lot about us,\u201d said Gimenez. \u201cLast year we did it and this year we’ve started doing it. We are the kind of offence that can run the bases and also can slug.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerrero, who missed both weekend losses to New York with back tightness and also returned Tuesday in an 0-for-4 effort, had two hits and two RBIs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s big,\u201d said John Schneider. \u201cThe two-strike single to right and sometimes it’s a lawn dart that gets you going and you drive in an insurance run, you know? So, for everything that people are talking about with Vlad, he’s still managing to get his hits and be productive. You never know when Vlad is going to take off and get hot and sometimes it’s a day like today where he’s really good defensively and has some, good batted-ball luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays can use all of that in the finale, when they start Trey Yesavage against Sonny Gray as they seek their second sweep of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Resetting after a bullpen day \u201cstarts on the mound with Trey and you\u2019ve got to generate some offence,\u201d said John Schneider. \u201cIt’s easy to say, OK, you’re maybe a little bit thin in the bullpen. Having a good approach against a good pitcher (Thursday) will solve some of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, too, will the continued acclimation to the realities of pitching amid injuries, when staffs are forced to find ways to cover innings as best they can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013 The fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants approach injuries have forced the Toronto Blue Jays to take with their starting rotation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-744149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}