‘I feel there’s a night and day difference compared to last year.’
Max Scherzer has made two impressive spring training starts to much fanfare for a much-anticipated season with his seventh big league club.
Jose Berrios has been his usual machine-like self through his first pair of Grapefruit League appearances, as has Bowden Francis, the upstart young hand of the Blue Jays rotation.
And veteran Chris Bassitt has one start as he begins his deliberate ramp-up to a season opener that is inching towards being just three weeks away.
With that, the stage shifts to the much-anticipated 2025 debut of Kevin Gausman for Wednesday’s game in Bradenton against the Pirates.
That the lanky right-hander is behind the rest of his rotation mates is far from a cause for concern, especially when viewed in comparison with a year ago when Gausman was so far in arrears that he almost didn’t make it for the opening series of the season.
In hindsight, perhaps he shouldn’t have rushed.
Behind in his preparations from the day he arrived in camp thanks to a nagging shoulder condition, Gausman never truly recovered in advance of that woeful last-place season for his team. True to his upstanding character, the seasoned right-hander would be the first to tell you as much after a campaign that was below his own high standards.
As a veteran, Gausman is big on finding the ideal window of preparation for the long grind that awaits. For him, the ideal scenario is to have an arm that is fresh and ready to throw in April, but still able to deliver high quality efforts in October. That means easing into game action during the lengthy exhibition season and ramping up from there.
When spring training starts on the wrong foot, it’s difficult to recover — no matter your age.
A year ago, shoulder fatigue limited Gausman to just one Grapefruit League appearance and that was a desperately rushed outing in the final days of camp.
With a lack of starting depth on the Jays roster at the time, Gausman admitted to forcing the issue to help out his team and did make a start in the opening series of the season in Tampa. But the circumstances, like his health, were less than ideal.
And it took him months to fully recover.
Gausman knew something was awry before he arrived in Dunedin for 2024 spring training after being diagnosed with capsulitis in his throwing shoulder. That inflammation was a bothersome condition that hindered his preparation throughout, limiting much of his work to the back fields at the Jays player development complex.
The good news in the present is that there is no such problem for Gausman this spring, with early indications being the opposite as he’s throwing with authority and feeling good physically.
That reality will make Wednesday’s debut (following an off day for the Jays on Tuesday) a much more welcome outing than what awaited a year ago.
About to enter his 13th big league season, the 34-year-old Gausman says he added 30 pounds this winter, a deliberate move to help provide some durability to better sustain the grind of a 162-game season.
“I feel there’s a night-and-day difference compared to last year,” Gausman told reporters in Dunedin earlier in camp.
That’s Gausman for you though: A veteran arm with a veteran mindset that always is looking to adapt and improve.
And here’s the thing: Even with that nagging shoulder ailment, last season hardly was a disaster for Gausman as he managed to make 31 starts and pitch 181 innings for the team. His ERA was a credible 3.83, but Gausman was nowhere near as dominant as he was through stretches of his first two seasons with the Jays.
It can also be argued that the “real” Kevin Gausman was the one who was dealing with authority late in the season. Over his final 14 starts, Gausman went 8-4 with a tidier 2.90 ERA, a 1.10 WHIP and limiting opponents to a .207 batting average.
With that in mind, feeling stronger and with a better opportunity to build up for his first real start, it’s far from a leap to hold high expectations for the popular veteran in 2025.
Gausman is a lot of things for this Jays team, both on the field and off. As much as the front office takes knocks for big free agents that got away, Gausman was a high-profile signing when he agreed to a five-year, $110-million US deal prior to the 2022 season.
Of greater pertinence, Gausman heavily researched his options and settled on Toronto because he truly wanted to be here and believed in the franchise’s short- and long-term future.
He’s a fierce competitor. He’s an honest, transparent voice and he’s a strong clubhouse presence.
But as much as anything, he has the potential to be the ace of a staff long on experience and highly motivated to prove that last year’s struggles were an aberration.
The road to making that happen gets started Wednesday afternoon with a bus ride down to Bradenton.