Gausman grinds through 'stressful pitches' to reach 200 K's

TORONTO -- When things aren’t going well for the Blue Jays, Kevin Gausman tends to be the answer.

Beyond the dominance Gausman displays on the mound, his splitter turning baseball’s best hitters inside out, there’s something about his free-and-easy demeanor that fits “ace of the Toronto Blue Jays” well in a season that’s required some … patience.

Monday’s 6-3 win over the Nationals at Rogers Centre wasn’t Gausman at his absolute best, but for what felt like the first time in a decade, the Blue Jays backed him up. The right-hander’s run support has been downright dreadful this season, but when Toronto burst through with a four-run second inning, its ace could finally exhale as he cruised past the 200-strikeout milestone.

The win is more calming than invigorating, coming off an ugly series the Blue Jays dropped to the Guardians, and it won’t change the American League Wild Card standings much. The Rangers and Astros both won, keeping Toronto 2 1/2 games back of the final Wild Card spot. The Blue Jays own the tiebreaker over Houston, but they will need to take at least three of four from Texas in September to hold that advantage.

They will also need Gausman’s continued dominance.

“Two hundred strikeouts before September is pretty damn impressive,” said manager John Schneider. “On a night where he probably wasn’t his sharpest and we were hoping for him to go pretty deep into the game, I thought he made big pitches when he had to.”

Gausman has now cracked 200 strikeouts in each of his two seasons with the Blue Jays, which puts him in rare company. Only the great Roy Halladay (three times) and Roger Clemens (twice) have done that multiple times, and with three years left on Gausman’s deal, he’ll have every opportunity to stand alone at the top of that list.

It’s all part of an intriguing case for the AL Cy Young Award that he continues to build, but Gausman might not include Monday on his personal highlight reel.

“I got lucky that I was able to go five,” Gausman said, cracking a smile.

Rarely has Gausman been granted a moment to breathe this season. He’s up to 155 1/3 innings now, ranking eighth in the AL. Chris Bassitt, José Berríos and Yusei Kikuchi -- Gausman’s rotation mates -- are also in the top-20 in innings pitched in the AL.

This group has performed incredibly in 2023.

If Toronto’s rotation was even average, then a conversation about the postseason wouldn’t be on the table, but this group has stubbornly dragged the Blue Jays forward.

“It’s been a grind this year, for sure,” Gausman said. “We didn’t have many off-days early on. Then, having a four-man rotation, those things definitely add up. All of us starters, we’re getting to pretty high inning totals. I think that, more than anything, it’s about stressful pitches. A lot of stressful pitches.”

There’s the key: stressful pitches.

With so little run support, Gausman and the Blue Jays’ pitching staff have lived in high-stress innings all season long. The odd blowout win would be a gift, allowing the starter and bullpen to kick it into cruise control and coast for a few miles, but those wins haven’t come very often.

At this point of the season, Gausman also starts to battle his body. This type of workload isn’t easy, and even though Gausman feels strong physically, the constant adjustments he’s been making on the mound make even the simplest pitches stressful on his body.

“When you’re constantly searching out there, you make a pitch and feel like that’s it,” Gausman explained. “Then, on the next pitch, I fell off the mound tonight. You don’t ever see me do that. I was just a little out of whack. I got fortunate that I went through five.”

If the Blue Jays get where they want to go, Gausman needs to be at the front of it. He’s only fallen short of a full five innings four times in 26 starts this season, making him one of baseball’s best bets for a deep outing, but Gausman is looking to recapture his hot stretch through June and July.

Just like Gausman deserves more support from the offense, he deserves the opportunity to pitch in big postseason games for the Blue Jays once again.

This rotation is so talented that, if Toronto falls short of the playoffs, it will be easy to look back two, five or 10 years from now and wonder what could have been with Gausman, Bassitt, Berrios and Kikuchi in a seven-game series.