As Trade Deadline looms, Blue Jays need to preserve biggest strength

TORONTO -- As difficult as it is to see these things through the heavy fog, baseball exists beyond the July 30 Trade Deadline and seasons exist beyond this one.

Most of these conversations will stay down the road where they belong, but all of those will be colored by what we see right here, right now.

There’s no silver lining or grand realization to take away from Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the Astros, their third loss in four games to end a disappointing series. The Blue Jays are 39-48 with just 20 games between now and the Deadline, and while it’s looking clear that they’ll be forced to sell, they also need to salvage some things from the fire.

Going back to the start of last season, Toronto’s rotation has been a strength, even as it weathered major injuries to Hyun Jin Ryu and Alek Manoah. Last season, this group ranked third in baseball with a 3.83 ERA. This year, they sit 14th with a 4.03 ERA, showing similar talent but in streakier ways.

These four veterans are good -- Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, José Berríos and Yusei Kikuchi -- but their durability is just as important. They know how to pitch, which is more than just throwing a baseball hard, and have saved the Blue Jays from their thin pitching depth over and over again.

“They’re right at the spot of being old-school enough and open-minded enough to evolve a bit,” manager John Schneider said. “Just think of Yusei’s time here and how he’s changed. José is a bit of a different animal with his durability, then Chris and Kevin are the same way. We’d like to instill that in all of our pitchers.”

This is what the Blue Jays need to keep alive in their rotation next year and beyond. Kikuchi is an obvious candidate to be dealt ahead of the Trade Deadline, but beyond that, the Blue Jays have Bassitt under control through 2025, Gausman through ‘26 and Berríos has a contract that runs through 2028 with an opt-out after ‘26.

That’s a fine core for a rotation, and that’s been so necessary given how few options the Blue Jays have developed to support this group. It’s been an organizational weakness covered up by the strength of these signings and trades.

Take Bassitt, who stumbled out of the gates and allowed four runs over five innings against Houston, but came into play with a 1.47 ERA over his last eight starts since his mid-May resurgence. He’s 35 and coming off a career-high 200 innings, but it feels like he’s made of rubber.

“He understands his body. He’s not the tightly wound, muscular guy like José is, to put it lightly,” Schneider said. “He understands his workload between starts, really, and when he’s out there, he doesn’t want to come out. He’s figured out how to sustain and then gain as the season goes on. He’s a rare breed in today’s game.”

Schneider leans on all the classic pieces of praise. Bassitt is a bulldog, he says, a different breed. He’s old school in the best possible way.

“I think that style of pitching is making its way back, too,” Schneider added.

Baseball is spilling over with young arms who can throw 100 mph and light up a computer with their sweeper’s data, but pitchers like these four veterans are becoming rarer. They’re the foundation the Blue Jays were supposed to succeed upon, particularly last year.

The heartbreak will come again, whether it’s two, five or 10 years from now when the Blue Jays have a dominant offense but shaky starting pitching. We’ll look back and say: Imagine if they had that group of starters from 2023-24.

For now, there’s only so much Bassitt and the Blue Jays’ starters can say. Even when newcomer Yariel Rodríguez gave Toronto the best outing of his young career in Monday's series opener -- 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball -- he got stuck with the loss.

“Win tomorrow. That’s it,” Bassitt said. “If you start to think about all of the other stuff, it doesn’t help anything. There’s no benefit to thinking about it. Just win tomorrow. Make it simple. Anything else, I think, is just the wrong answer.”

No. 1 prospect Ricky Tiedemann could be part of this equation soon, particularly if he gets hot in Triple-A and particularly if Kikuchi is moved, but the Blue Jays’ prospect depth is thin beyond that. Somehow, some way, the Blue Jays need to keep this style of rotation alive into the future. It’s the rest that needs fixing.