TORONTO -- September is a long, slow game of musical chairs for the Blue Jays’ rotation. It has already gone from six to five, and by October, another starter will be left without a chair.
Track records matter, but all five of these veterans have one. There’s an element of “What have you done for me lately?” at play here, which makes every inning José Berríos pitches down the stretch absolutely crucial.
Wednesday night’s 3-2 loss to the Astros at Rogers Centre belonged to the offense, which nearly came back late, and Jeff Hoffman, who allowed his 15th home run of the season in the ninth. This one doesn’t hang on Berríos, but it was encouraging to see him look “normal” again.
That’s all we’re used to seeing from Berríos, who has spent a decade as one of the most consistent players on the planet, but the past two-plus months had been rocky. In 11 starts since the start of July, Berríos owned a 5.47 ERA before Wednesday, so the Blue Jays had to be pleased with 5 1/3 innings of smooth, steady two-run ball.
“I was really encouraged with his stuff,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “For one, he had a way better fastball. His tempo and delivery, I thought it was way better, and his curveball was way better.”
The bar is higher come this time of year, though. If the postseason started tomorrow, Shane Bieber would be the likely Game 1 starter for the American League East leaders, with Kevin Gausman and Max Scherzer coming behind him in some order. Chris Bassitt has been steadier than Berríos lately, but Bassitt might be the more versatile pitcher between the two, capable of pitching out of the bullpen, on short rest or anything else the Blue Jays could ask of him. As Schneider loves to say, “Chris does weird well.”
A fourth starter wouldn’t be needed until a potential Game 4 of the AL Division Series, which is still miles down the road, but that’s what the Blue Jays will spend the next three weeks sorting out. Injuries and performance will all factor in, but as it stands right now, Berríos is battling for a spot.
Two years ago, Berríos was Toronto’s No. 2 starter in the postseason, a day every Blue Jays fan wishes he could forget. That was the infamous must-win Game 2 of the best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Twins, where Toronto yanked Berríos after three innings to bring in Yusei Kikuchi, an aggressive move in an effort to flip Minnesota’s lineup and shift the momentum of the game.
The Blue Jays were eliminated from the postseason that day with a 2-0 loss, so it wouldn’t have mattered if they had brought in prime Pedro Martínez, but the sting of that loss still stayed with Berríos. Those three innings may have been the best, most assertive moments we’ve seen from Berríos in this uniform.
Spotlight on October
Schneider knows there are some major decisions looming. His first came in moving Eric Lauer to the bullpen, not an easy call with a starter who had been one of the stories of the season for the Blue Jays and had saved this rotation for months.
The manager doesn’t want his veteran starters looking over their shoulder. He needs their attention right here, right now. While it’s challenging to make some of these decisions, especially with such well-respected veterans, it’s also a privilege. Only teams playing postseason baseball are faced with these calls.
“I’m fairly certain that everyone in the room knows we have to try to win every single night, and whatever we have to do to do that, we’re going to,” Schneider said.
The path forward for Berríos
The short version is that Berríos has lost some juice on his sinker and four-seam fastball. Coming into play Wednesday, his average sinker velocity had dropped to 92.1 mph (down 1.3 mph compared to 2024) and his four-seamer had dropped to 93 mph (down 1.1 mph). Losing even one tick off your fastball when you already live in the low to mid 90s is a dangerous, dangerous game. This has also resulted in lower whiff rates on both pitches, putting more pressure on his breaking ball.
The good news? Berríos' sinker and four-seamer both sat near his 2024 velocities Wednesday night. Granted, that’s with seven full days of rest -- a luxury rarely afforded in the postseason -- but it’s a step forward.
Berríos projects to make three more starts this season, which would mark his seventh consecutive full season (excluding 2020) of reaching 32. Wednesday tilted Berríos back in the right direction, but if these difficult decisions are going to get any easier, these final three starts will need to be Berríos’ best.