The Blue Jays announced that right-hander Shane Bieber has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to August 21, with right teres major inflammation. IL stints can only be backdated by three days, so they must have made the move at some point during yesterday’s off-day. Righty Chad Dallas has been recalled as a corresponding move.

At this point, there aren’t many details available about Bieber’s injury or expected absence. He started for the Jays on Thursday and nothing seemed amiss. In fact, he had his best start of the season. In Tampa, he tossed seven innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts. Apparently, this inflammation issue popped up in the wake of that start, perhaps during a between-starts bullpen session.

Regardless of the details, losing Bieber is a blow to the Jays, who have been battling rotation injury problems all year long. Bowden Francis required Tommy John surgery before the season even began. José Berríos began the season on the IL and followed Francis down the Tommy John path in May. Cody Ponce injured his knee in his first start and required season-ending ACL surgery. Trey Yesavage, Dylan Cease, Max Scherzer, Jake Bloss, Spencer Arrighetti and Jameson Taillon have also spent time on the IL for various issues.

At times, there have been moments where the rotation seemed on the verge of stabilization. After the trade deadline, the club was leaning towards operating with a six-man rotation, consisting of José Soriano, Cease, Scherzer, Bieber, Yesavage and Taillon. A couple of weeks ago, both Taillon and Yesavage hit the IL in quick succession, dropping the Jays to four starters. They plugged the hole with bulk contributions from Simeon Woods Richardson and Arrighetti. Now Bieber’s departure gives the club another blow to work around.

Despite all the injury issues, the Jays have been hanging around the playoff picture, mostly due to a weak American League field. The club’s 64-68 record is enough to have them within two games of the final Wild Card spot. As they try to pull off a late-season surge, they will have to proceed with a rotation now consisting of Cease, Soriano and Scherzer. It’s likely that Arrighetti has a spot as well, as he tossed 3 1/3 innings of long relief last time out, his first game after his own IL stint.

They will have to improvise something for the fifth spot. Woods Richardson is still on the roster and could take on bulk innings again. Taillon, sidelined by forearm tendinitis, has been throwing and could contribute if he can come off the IL. Dallas has starting experience but his appearances have been under two innings over the past three weeks. Ricky Tiedemann has also been working as a reliever this year. CJ Van Eyk just tossed four innings in a Triple-A game on Sunday, so he could be a bulk option but not for a few more days. John Klein, acquired in the Jeff Hoffman deal, is on the 40-man and tossed three innings on Thursday. Grant Rogers and Josh Stephan, the latter acquired alongside Josh Smith in the Adam Macko deal, are stretched out but not currently on the roster.

For Bieber, this is the latest addition to his checkered injury history. The 2020 American League Cy Young winner has been battling various arm issues for quite a while. A subscapularis strain limited him to 16 starts in 2021. He was healthy in 2022 but then elbow inflammation popped up in 2023 and capped him at 21 outings. He required Tommy John surgery early in 2024 and missed most of that season.

He was traded from the Guardians to the Blue Jays last year while still recovering from that surgery. He finished last season strong, with a 3.57 ERA in seven starts. As the Jays made a World Series push, he was able to make five more appearances in the postseason with a 3.86 ERA in those. It seemed like a lock that he would turn down the $16MM player option in his deal and head to free agency in search of a long-term pact.

Instead, he decided to trigger that player option. Though that was surprising at the time, it eventually made more sense when it was revealed that Bieber had some forearm fatigue late in 2025. He started 2026 on the IL and wasn’t activated until June. He has had a wobbly season, with a 4.53 ERA in 11 starts. He has had a few clunkers, including one outing where he allowed four earned runs without escaping the first inning, but has a 2.96 ERA in four starts since then.

He is set to become a free agent in a few weeks. His track record will lead to a lot of interest but he has been battling arm issues for years and hasn’t tossed 60 innings in a season since 2023. He is at 55 2/3 this year and could push that up if he comes back quickly but he will still head to the open market with lots of question marks.

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images