Gausman dominates back end of Year 3 in Toronto despite slow start

TORONTO -- Three years in, everything about Kevin Gausman has gone right for the Blue Jays.

He nailed the first impression in 2022, dominated in ‘23 and showed in ‘24 that even his bad days look like most pitchers’ good days. Gausman has already been worth every dime of his five-year, $110 million contract, but the Blue Jays can’t waste another year of a starter who’s on track to be remembered as one of the best in this organization’s history.

Wednesday’s 6-1 win over the Red Sox was such a fitting end to Gausman’s season. Nothing about his performance was overpowering, but he made the right pitches at the right times over six innings of one-run ball and stranded the bases loaded with his final out. His strikeout rates have dropped from the elite levels of 2022-23 back down to earth in ‘24, but Gausman has survived it.

Good pitchers can beat you their way. Great pitchers can beat you any way.

“The way he finished this season is just indicative of who he is,” said manager John Schneider. “He put that slow start behind him. I wanted him to work out of that and he did. You can’t really say enough about his last 10 starts, however long it’s been. It’s been a while that he’s been pretty damn good.”

Gausman finished 2024 with a 3.83 ERA and 162 strikeouts over 181 innings, a season that ran counter to what we’re used to seeing from him. A classic Gausman season starts hot -- remember when he opened ‘22 with 45 strikeouts before his first walk? -- but he’s typically faded down the stretch. August and September have always been the “grind” months, as Gausman says, but this year, he finally found his groove.

This all started in Spring Training. Gausman missed time through the heart of camp with shoulder fatigue, and even for a pitcher coming off a third-place Cy Young finish, playing catch-up in the big leagues is nearly impossible. Gausman made just one Grapefruit League start in late March before the regular season began, and looking back, he admitted that it might have been more beneficial to open the season on the IL. In those early months, when Gausman carried a 4.75 ERA through the end of June, he was stuck running uphill.

“The consistency wasn’t there as much as I would have liked,” Gausman said. “I thought I did a good job making adjustments when I needed to, but the reality is that I had a really bad first month. I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well lately, but I was just not as consistent.”

The realities of aging are inescapable, but Gausman will only be 34 next season, and there’s every reason to believe he can take a step back in the direction of those ‘22-’23 seasons, especially with a “normal” spring. There are two years left on Gausman’s deal … which are two years that can’t be wasted.

“It was frustrating for him at the start of the year, obviously, when you’re a pitcher of that caliber and you’re not getting the results you’re used to,” Schneider said. “It’s frustrating. I give him a lot of credit for evolving as he went and working through some things. I just like where he ended with his stuff, with his velocity and his splitter. His last three or four starts, his splitter has been really good. I’m just happy for him that he ended it the way he did.”

Part of the heartbreak of a lost season is the individual performances that are lost in the fire. It’s similar to the conversations we’ve had about this team coming out of 2021, when one of the best lineups in Blue Jays history fell short of the postseason. Last year, an excellent rotation led by Gausman, José Berríos and Chris Bassitt hauled a million innings, but ended up back in the same spot.

These groups, these players and these seasons can disappear quickly, which is why an avalanche of pressure is about to come crashing down on this team in ‘25, the final year of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette’s deals.

Gausman won’t be here forever, either. If he comes back stronger in 2025 -- which feels more like a “when” than an “if” -- the Blue Jays need to line up everything else around Gausman to give him and this veteran staff another shot at October. He, and they, have earned it.