How the Blue Jays Injuries Could Shape the Start of the 2026 Season
Despite Toronto’s utmost caution with his workload, Trey Yesavage will be starting the season on the injured list. On March 19th, it was announced that the rookie pitcher is dealing with a right shoulder impingement. In fact, he actually reported to camp with the injury, and it was the initial reason he was taking it easy. Despite this news coming out now, manager John Schneider stated that the righty is feeling better and ready to increase his throwing. Yesavage is eager to return to his normal pitching program, and Schneider is confident it will come back naturally. He is even scheduled to pitch his next game on March 25th and will ramp up his pitching until his shoulder is 100%.
It seems that the team didn’t reveal the 22-year-old’s injury at first because they expected him to be ready by opening day, so the recovery may be taking longer than they originally thought. So if the Blue Jays can’t rely on their Rookie of the Year candidate, who will their starters be? Unfortunately, it won’t be Shane Bieber or José Berríos yet either. Bieber has been battling forearm fatigue this offseason after having Tommy John surgery in April 2024. The 30-year-old spent most of 2025 rehabbing and didn’t pitch at all for the Cleveland Guardians before being traded to Toronto for minor leaguer Khal Stephen. Eventually, Bieber resumed pitching for several regular-season games before contributing to the Blue Jays’ historic 2025 postseason run, but he has yet to return to the mound during 2026 Spring Training. Similar to Yesavage, the veteran has no specific return timeline, but there is no rush either, since Toronto hopes to have him healthy for the entire season.
Unfortunately for Berríos, a stress fracture sounds much more severe than soreness or fatigue. Despite feeling healthy, inflammation was discovered in the 31-year-old’s right elbow after he underwent a routine MRI when hoping to play for Puerto Rico in this year’s World Baseball Classic. To get more information, he traveled to see specialist Dr. Keith Meister, who diagnosed the fracture. Luckily, since Berríos doesn’t feel any pain, he’ll only have to rest a few days, just be cautious, before he can keep throwing with monitoring, of course. The fracture might’ve even been the cause of the inflammation that sent him to the IL for the first time in his career at the end of last season. Though this news may sound concerning, now the pitcher and his team know the root of the problem and can treat it accordingly to hopefully get him healthy a few weeks after Opening Day.
The injuries of Yesavage, Bieber, and Berríos may seem detrimental, but it looks like they’re all on track to recover relatively quickly. Other notable names on the Blue Jays’ IL that have the potential to return this season include reliever Yimi García, who’s still rehabbing his 2025 right elbow surgery and is said to be on a similar timeline to Bieber and fifth-ranked prospect, Ricky Tiedemann, who’s week to week while recovering from left elbow soreness after 2024 Tommy John surgery. In addition, outfielder Anthony Santander and pitcher Bowden Francis both underwent surgeries this offseason and are not expected to return in 2026. Fortunately, Toronto is prepared for this extensive IL.
Now knowing about all the injuries that the Blue Jays were dealing with behind the scenes, it makes sense why they invested so much into upgrading their pitching rotation this offseason. Max Scherzer is now off the IL and pitched five scoreless innings today for a 2-1 win against the Minnesota Twins. Two-time all-star Kevin Gausman has officially been named the Opening Day starter against the Oakland Athletics on March 27th. Signing Dylan Cease to the largest free-agent deal in franchise history turned out to be a necessary risk. Cody Ponce is projected to be a great addition to the roster after winning the 2025 KBO MVP Award. Tyler Rogers just helped Team USA reach the WBC Championship this past week. Eric Lauer, who was an important piece of the pitching rotation for the Jays last year, before Bieber and Yesavage came in, will come to the rescue again while they recover. The impressive depth that this pitching staff would have if it were fully healthy has turned into a comfortable, yet competitive, start-of-the-season rotation. Toronto will be able to rely on the talent they still have available, so that the IL pitchers can heal on their own timeline and work on staying healthy for another dominant postseason.
