BUFFALO — It was not the triple-A debut Trey Yesavage was hoping for, but a couple of hours after his brief 1.2 inning outing with the Buffalo Bisons was in the books, the Toronto Blue Jays’ top prospect didn’t seem the least bit rattled.
“Nerves always get the best of me whenever it’s my first outing with a new team,” the right-hander said from beneath the brim of a blue Bisons ballcap. “I know I’m the same guy and I’ll be better for it next week.”
On Thursday night at Sahlen Field, the 22-year-old who’s made a meteoric rise up the Jays’ farm system this season gave up two earned runs and three walks in the first inning alone in his debut appearance with the Bisons.
Yesavage opened the game with a walk, gave up a hit for a single, then loaded the bases with another walk. Then he walked the fourth batter he faced to gift an early run to the visiting Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Ouch.
While it wasn’t ideal, it had to feel familiar: That’s exactly how Yesavage fared in his debut starts in high-A and double-A earlier this year, with the bases loaded and no outs in the first inning.
“The only pitch I had today was a slider — splitter and fastball were not competitive,” he said, by way of explanation.
Yesavage did rebound, closing out the first inning with back-to-back strikeouts to strand a pair of runners, and locating with his slider. “The last three batters of that first inning I felt were up to my standard,” he said, and his fastball did find the strike zone, regularly clocking 94 m.p.h.
But the damage was done. The Blue Jays’ 20th overall pick last year, Yesavage fired 35 pitches in the first inning. He registered his third strikeout of the game against the 10th and final batter he faced, and his night ended after 56 pitches.
“Through not even two innings, getting up to almost 60 pitches is a lot, so they want to look out for me and look out for my health,” he said. “Just too many long counts — pitch count got up. It gets to a point.”
Yesavage was called up to Buffalo earlier this week after opening the season with single-A Dunedin and climbing every stage of the Blue Jays’ organizational ladder in short time. That type of rise is a rarity. “Oh, not too often,” Bisons manager Casey Candaele said of just how frequently a player is promoted that quickly. “The ability to keep the ball in the zone and throw strikes, that’s something that most pitchers have to develop through time. And to move through that quickly is a testament to how good he’s done.”
“It’s been an awesome ride — a lot of packin’ up, a lot of unpackin’” Yesavage said, with a grin. “Fourth team this year, but it’s been a great time.”
In his Bisons debut, Yesavage struggled with control early. He thought he had his first strikeout of the game with bases loaded in the first, but a full-count third strike was challenged and overturned, and the batter walked to cash that first run for the IronPigs.
“I was definitely disappointed — I thought it was a strike,” Yesavage said. “I don’t know how much it missed by. Wish I could have that one back, but it happens.”
He’s MLB Pipeline’s 26th-overall prospect, and the plan for his Bisons debut was four or five innings and 70-75 pitches, so he was more than two innings and nearly 20 pitches short. Before the game, Candaele said he expected Yesavage to make good on the four- or five-inning plan, but the manager also pointed out: “It’s a higher level and he’s jumped a few this year and this is the first time he’s pitching in a game with a Major League baseball.”
In A and double-A, the baseballs have bigger seams, so pitches break sharper and spin more, and some pitchers have an adjustment period getting used to the smaller seams used at the triple-A and Major League levels.
Heading into Thursday Yesavage sported a 3.01 ERA, 134 strikeouts and 30 walks in 80.2 innings of work at lower levels. His ERA after 1.2 innings with the Bisons is 10.80.
Though he wasn’t always locating his pitches, the six-foot-four Yesavage showcased his unique delivery. “He has such a high release, I think it’s about 7 feet, 1 inches, which means he’s releasing over his head,” Candaele said. “He gets real vertical with the ball, so that makes it harder for hitters to square it up and stay on plane with the baseball.
“He has good command of what he’s doing, he has a plan out there and he’s going after hitters, so he’s advanced in that aspect.”
The manager pointed out he never expects players to climb up the system as quickly as Yesavage has. “Every year people say, ‘Oh, this guy’s a big leaguer,’ or ‘That guy’s a big leaguer,’ and they’re young and they just did their first year or two of professional baseball. And it’s really hard,” Candaele said. “And that’s what making it even more impressive that he’s gotten up that quickly.”
Yesavage started this season in Dunedin. In May he was promoted to high-A Vancouver, and then double-A New Hampshire in June before he was transferred to the triple-A Bisons on Aug. 12. Though his debut with the Bisons was short, if his starts at high-A and double-A are any indication, it gets much easier from here, and that’s certainly the way Yesavage is approaching it.
“I’m just focused on tomorrow,” he said. “I’m gonna show up to the field and attack with what I got, my lift, my catch play, and that’s all I’m worried about.”
The nerves are gone, too.
“They are, yeah,” Yesavage said. “Flushed.”
