As Blue Jays search for fifth starter, Yarbrough’s fit even more apparent

NEW YORK – Ryan Yarbrough is experienced enough to know better than to take anything for granted, but the 33-year-old lefty felt he was in a good position to break with the Toronto Blue Jays as the end of spring training neared. Though he’d only signed a week into camp, the sides knew each other from two months together at the end of 2024, the club was “super cool” about not making him feel like he had to “go crazy to hit the ground running,” and there seemed to be a need for his versatility with Max Scherzer’s uncertain status.

So when the Blue Jays didn’t add him to the roster Feb. 23, leading to a major-league deal with the New York Yankees a day later, “it was definitely weird,” Yarbrough said, as “I didn’t see myself not being there.”

“I feel like I had a good camp, everything was trending in the right direction, velocity was up from the off-season,” he continued during an interview over the weekend. “And I guess from the front-office side, they just wanted to go in a different direction. I’d envisioned myself, just because of how I did last year with the team and what I brought last year, in a similar role this year. I thought it was a really good fit. I don’t know how it all worked out. But I guess from a guaranteeing standpoint, they didn’t feel that and wanted to go in a different direction.”

What Yarbrough means by “guaranteeing standpoint” is that the Blue Jays wanted him to sign an advanced consent, which would have allowed them to keep him on the roster up to 45 days without guaranteeing the entire $2-million major-league salary called for in his minor-league contract. Doing so would have left him on the roster bubble and there was no need for him to carry such risk when, as it turned out, the Yankees were willing to lock him in for the same $2-million base salary, plus performance incentives.

Even before Scherzer’s first start of the regular season lasted only three innings, leading to an injured-list stint that’s ongoing with no timeline yet for a return, the decision by the Blue Jays appeared risky. His fit on the roster as a swingman-type reliever is more apparent now that the club is again scrambling to cover a rotation vacancy that next comes up Wednesday.

Manager John Schneider said Sunday the current approach to filling the opening “is see what other people are doing in terms of starting, maybe rolling through it one more time and then sticking to four (starters for a stretch).”

“I know we do have a lot of off-days, but I think trying to avoid doing the four-man kind of regularly right now would be important,” he added. “So see what Easton Lucas is doing and see what Jake Bloss is doing, Eric Lauer, see how Wednesday goes and kind of go from there.”

None of that is ideal, as the Blue Jays are understandably wary of burdening their veteran workhorse trio of Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt.

Still, three off-days this month give the Blue Jays an opportunity to be creative in how they roll out the rotation and consider running a partial four-man that would eliminate one outing by the fifth spot through the end of May.

Here are two possible tracks:

Using a partial four-man would mean Berrios, Gausman, Bassitt and Bowden Francis each sacrifice two starts on an additional rest day during that span. Given the Blue Jays’ limited depth, is it worth it, even for a stretch?

Here’s the difference in the two tracks for each starter:

Whatever they decide, they need to settle on a starter for Wednesday.

Lauer is on turn and he’s coming off five shutout innings with five strikeouts for triple-A Buffalo against Rochester on Thursday. While he isn’t on the 40-man roster, the Blue Jays opened a spot Sunday when they transferred Ryan Burr to the 60-day IL, so no issue there.

Bloss, after three shaky starts to open the season, has had consecutive solid outings, following up a 4.2-shutout inning, seven-strikeout performance with 4.1 shutout innings and five strikeouts in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Rochester.

Lucas, optioned after two electric starts followed by two rough ones for the Blue Jays while covering for Scherzer, walked four and allowed two runs in 5.1 innings in his first outing back with Buffalo last week.

Scherzer, meanwhile, got back up on a mound over the weekend in New York but cautioned that though his progress was positive, he’d only taken “baby steps” forward and is unsure what will happen as he begins to rebuild volume.

All of which adds up to no clear answers, underlining how well Yarbrough, who’s logged 11.2 innings over seven outings with a 5.40 ERA for the Yankees so far, could help fill the current void, the way he and others envisioned back in the spring.

“It was a little strange because from a player standpoint and a coaching-staff standpoint, you understood where I fit in and how I helped,” said Yarbrough. “They told me when I did the offer, ‘We’re going to take it down to the deadline,’ because they had other stuff they had to go through and figure out with other roster positions. And it just literally came down to the wire. They told me 9:30 that morning. …

“Luckily I found something really quick and it’s been it’s been good over here.”

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