It happened. Something that Jays fans hoped wouldn’t happen, but something that was inevitable – The Blue Jays have placed Hyun Jin Ryu on the 10-day IL.
During Ryu’s last start on Sunday against the Rays, he left after 3.2 innings with a right glute strain. Ryu has had this kind of injury before, and it didn’t result in him missing significant time. He did say after the game that he didn’t think it was going to be serious and he wasn’t going to spend time on the IL. Unfortunately, that didn’t end up being the case as the Jays placed him on the IL Wednesday afternoon. It is retroactive to April 26th, so this means he is eligible to come off the IL on May 6th at the earliest. With the couple of off-days that the Jays had in the schedule this week, this could mean that if Ryu were to return on May 6th, he would have only missed just one start. This of course, is the best-case scenario, but we will see if it ends up being the case.
As mentioned, Ryu has suffered this injury before, but he has also experienced a history of injury problems. Last year’s shortened season really benefited the Jays because Ryu was able to stay healthy for the entire season due to its 60-game length. Going into this season, it was reasonable to assume that Ryu was going to spend time on the IL at some point. You would just have to hope it wouldn’t be anything too major. There is no good time to have an injury, but for the Jays – who are being blasted by injuries – this is a particularly bad time for Ryu to go down. With Ryu on the IL, the Jays currently only have two reliable starters in their rotation: Ray and Matz.
Nate Pearson – who was pencilled in as the number two starter going into the season – has still yet to make his season debut since suffering a groin injury during Spring training. Pearson has recently been pitching in games at their alternate training site, and was activated from the IL and optioned to Triple-A on Thursday. He will likely make a few starts for the Triple-A team, and the team will see how he does and where he is at in a few weeks time. It is still unknown as to when he will be returning to the big league club. Even when he does return, who knows what the Jays will be getting out of him.
Stripling is also working his way back from injury, and it is believed he could return to start Sunday against the Braves, or against Oakland next week. Roark was pencilled in at the beginning of the season to be the fifth starter, but his name was quickly erased as he was DFA’d Friday afternoon. He made only one start and two relief appearances this season, and none of his outings were good.
This begs the question that was asked by many fans during the offseason, “Why didn’t the Jays sign any starting pitching?” While I don’t have the exact answer to that, I will share the reasons that I believe contributed to the decision.
The main reason is the fact that there weren’t a lot of very good starters on the market. Trevor Bauer was obviously the best starting pitcher on the market, but after him there was a significant drop off. While it was confirmed by Bauer himself that the Jays had met with him during the offseason, it was unlikely to believe that a deal was going to be made. Of the other starters that were on the market, Jays fans were hoping to see the team land one of James Paxton, Jake Odorizzi, or Taijuan Walker. While each of these players would have been a fine addition to the rotation, they each have their flaws and cause for concern.
Starting with fellow Canadian James Paxton. Of the three, he has the most strengths and would have been a great number two starter behind Ryu. However, of the three, he was also the riskiest due to health reasons. Unfortunately, Paxton has a long history of injuries. Last year he only pitched 20.1 innings before being shut down for the season with a left flexor strain. When he signed a one-year deal with the Mariners for only $8.5 million, it left Jays fans wondering why they didn’t even make an offer to the Canadian, as they could’ve paid more. Did the Jays not want a fourth lefty in the rotation? Was the injury history too concerning to them? Regardless, it turned out to be for the best, as Paxton left his first start of the year after just 1.1 innings and then went under Tommy John surgery, which will keep him out until next season.
Next there was Jake Odorizzi. While he was coming off a season where he only pitched 13.2 innings due to numerous injuries, he has been a decent pitcher in his career. He isn’t someone that would be your one or two starter, but he makes for a decent mid rotation kind of guy. He signed a 2-year $23.5 million contract with the Astros, and so far, he has made just three starts for them, none of which have been good, and left his last start after only 0.1 innings and has since been placed on the IL with a strained right pronator muscle. Injuries would have been a concern when thinking about signing him, but it was also the length of the contract that deterred the Jays. Ideally, the Jays would have only been interested in signing him on a one-year term. However, it became clear in the offseason that he was looking for only multi-year deals.
Lastly, we have Taijuan Walker who Jays fans quickly became a fan of after he was traded to the team at last year’s trade deadline from Seattle. He pitched well in the one month that he was with the Jays, and it seemed like it would have made sense for the Jays to bring him back. When the Jays quickly re-signed Robbie Ray at the start of the offseason, Jays fans thought a Walker reunion would soon follow. Clearly however, it did not. While Walker did have a good 2020 season, it was only 11 starts (6 with the Jays), and he doesn’t exactly have a positive track record outside of that. In 2018 and 2019, he only pitched a combined 14.0 innings, as he was recovering from Tommy John Surgery. Prior to those seasons, he pitched decently, but at times was inconsistent and dealt with other injuries. Walker could have been a nice back of the rotation addition, but I believe that similar to Odorizzi, the Jays would have only been looking to do a one-year term. Walker signed with the Mets for two years at $20 million. That may not seem like that much, but the Jays gave a similar deal to Tanner Roark in the 2019 offseason, and we’ve seen how bad of a deal that has become. I’m not saying that Walker is as bad as Roark, as they are very different, but I believe that the Jays may try to be cautious when handing out multi-year deals to players with uncertainty.
While not ideal, the Jays could look to sign one of the free agent pitchers that are still available like Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello. They could also look to trade for a starting pitcher, but that might be something that doesn’t develop until closer to the trade deadline in July. Jays fans will clamour for the team to bring up #6 prospect Alek Manoah, but I wouldn’t hold my breathe for that. He is going to be starting the season in Triple-A – that in and of itself came as a bit of a surprise as he had never played above High A ball – but I still think it will be unlikely for him to make his major league debut this season.
The calendar is now just flipping over to May, and there is still a lot of the season left to play. It will be interesting to see how the Jays plan to cover all of the innings that are still to be played, but there are options. Hopefully, Ryu and Pearson can return as soon as possible, but the Jays will have to get creative while they wait for them to return. They have built a lot of depth, which is great, but it’s now going to be put to the test. How far this depth can carry them will remain to be seen, but they are in much better shape to handle all of these injuries than they were a couple years ago.