Wave of reinforcements could reshape Blue Jays' pitching outlook

ATLANTA — The Worcester Red Sox are in for quite a challenge this weekend, when two Cy Young winners and a runner-up for the award are expected to visit with the Toronto Blue Jays’ triple-A affiliate.

Dylan Cease is slated to start in Worcester Thursday with Max Scherzer set to follow him Friday for the Buffalo Bisons. While Shane Bieber’s next start date hasn’t been locked in, it’s possible he’ll follow his rehabbing teammates and pitch Saturday or Sunday.

All told, it will be a challenging weekend for Boston’s top minor-leaguers. More importantly for the Blue Jays, this development shows that their veteran starters are getting closer to helping a rotation that features only three starters while also easing the strain on a bullpen that’s taking on more than its share of work. 

Cease (hamstring) was slated to throw a bullpen session Tuesday at Truist Park while doing some running and agility work. If all goes well, he’ll proceed to Worcester, where he’ll be able to build back up relatively quickly.

“It’s possible it could be one-and-done,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider.

As for Scherzer, he’ll be aiming to throw about 60 pitches and four or five innings Friday after throwing 41 pitches last weekend. In his experience, building volume is easier in-season once a baseline’s already been established.

“I’m not ramping up,” he clarified. “I’m speeding up. So I can be a little bit more aggressive.”

The 41-year-old declined to speculate about what will happen after Friday’s outing, but he did say his forearm is feeling much better thanks to isometric exercises that helped knock out the tendinitis that sidelined him on April 25.

But he also stopped playing the piano for a couple weeks during his forearm rehab to ease the stress on the area, and his right thumb soon flared up again. He’s now back to playing the piano again — with no plans to stop doing so. 

“It just shows you, I have to play the piano if I want to pitch,” he said.

“This is a normal ramp-up,” he added. “My arm feels normal. My arm’s responding really well. The thumb’s good. The forearm’s good. The arm’s good.”

Bieber, meanwhile, is in Toronto with plans to throw a bullpen session Wednesday. If all goes well, he’ll pitch at triple-A over the weekend with a target of about four innings. He’ll need at least two more rehab starts before returning to the majors, according to Schneider.

There’s progress on the relief front, too, as reliever Yimi Garcia is slated to pitch an inning in Dunedin, Fla., on Wednesday and Tommy Nance will pitch at triple-A Friday in relief of Scherzer.

All told, these developments are significant for a team that just played 17 games in 17 days while losing Cease to the IL and rolling with Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles every five days.

“You could just see the effect on the bullpen guys with the 17 in a row,” Schneider said. “So we’re trying to really be aware of that too. And we’ve got guys that are projected to have a (boatload) of outings and innings in our pen.”

As Schneider acknowledged, heavy bullpen usage is part of today’s game. But he can also recall times that relying extensively on the likes of Garcia, Tim Mayza and Jordan Romano led to fatigue later, whether it was the same season or even the following year. For now, he’ll try to make sure he’s using relievers selectively and not burning valuable pitches in the bullpen where they don’t count.

At the same time, the Blue Jays are playing a lot of close games, so they keep turning to the same trusted group as they aim to get back to .500. That’s how Mason Fluharty, Louis Varland, Braydon Fisher, Jeff Hoffman and Tyler Rogers all rank in the top 10 in the American League in relief appearances.

“Yeah, these guys are running hot,” Schneider said. “It’s a lot of leverage.”