TORONTO — Max Scherzer knows where the baseball calendar is and the realities of where the Toronto Blue Jays stand in the standings, and he has no interest in going there. The veteran right-hander, who spent five hitless innings of rehab work in Triple-A Buffalo, is trending toward a return from the injured list, and if he can hit the ground running, clubs looking for depth and experience for their pitchers will likely show interest.
However, with full trade protection, Scherzer has the final say on his fate in the coming months. So, given the situation, would he consider a move if the Blue Jays receive an offer for his services? What does he want by the end of the year?
“I have nothing to say,” he replied. “We have a job to do. We need to win baseball games. We need to get one-and-out today. When whatever happens happens, we’ll talk about it another time. We have a job to do, go and get one.”
Led by seven strong innings from another potential trade candidate, Shane Bieber, the Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 on Thursday and avoided winning in four games against the American League East leaders.
By recent standards, those three runs looked like blowouts: Ernie Clement handily scored on Alejandro Kirk’s first infield single after Junior Caminero caught the ball at third base, while the go-ahead run crossed on George Springer’s RBI single in the third, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. added some insurance with an RBI single in the seventh.
But the heavy lifting fell to Bieber along with relievers Tyler Rogers and Louis Varland as the Blue Jays (47-56) ended a four-game losing streak that pushed them further into sell mode ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
As they headed to Fenway Park six games behind the Red Sox (52-49), with five teams between them, for a third wild card, Bieber, like Scherzer, was eager to focus on the present.
“I know that’s a boring answer, but all I can do is control what’s in front of me, which is Washington (for his next start), and root for the guys in Boston,” he said. “Obviously they’re having a great game and they’re on tears, but all we can do is focus on what’s in front of us and play every game like it’s our last and win ball games and let the chips fall where they may.”
Coming off six shutout innings in Saturday’s 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox, the last time the Blue Jays won a game, Bieber’s three-hit, one-run, no-walk, three-strikeout hit should help drum up interest in the pending free agent right-hander, who has no trade protection.
One competitive pundit said every outing between now and the deadline will really matter for Bieber as teams try to gauge where he’s at after missing half the season with elbow inflammation and building up his strength in the majors. The second evaluator said that as long as Bieber shows he’s healthy, there will be a market for him because starting-caliber postseason players are difficult to acquire in a timely manner and he showed his character by returning from Tommy John surgery in last year’s playoffs.
Manager John Schneider described Bieber as outstanding at being able to “limit hard contact against a really good offensive team” for the Rays, adding that he is gradually getting sharper.
“He looks completely different now than his first pair,” Schneider said. “With service comes team. In the last two games, he put the ball where he wanted it.”
The Blue Jays don’t feel the need to make deals for the sake of making them, so they would need a certain threshold of talent to complete any subtraction deal. So how teams view what Bieber and their other players with expiring contracts can offer will determine how deep any potential sell-off goes.
As this drama unfolds, Schneider and the coaching staff remain focused on helping their players turn the team’s fortunes around, no matter what the playoff odds say.
To that end, they looked to how the Red Sox, seemingly buried with playoff odds of just 8.4 percent back on June 21, shortly after Toronto beat them in Boston, rallied to win 15 straight games and return to relevance. Their playoff chances are now 62.1%, according to Fangraphs..
Last season, the Cincinnati Reds’ playoff odds stood at 6.6% on Aug. 7 and dropped to 1.3% on Sept. 4 before they rallied and clinched a wild card berth. The Cleveland Guardians were at 12.2% on July 31 last year and 2.5% on Sept. 1 before they rallied and won the AL Central.
In 2024, the Detroit Tigers’ playoff odds on August 1st were 0.3% and were traded at the deadline before they won the wild card, each of which is a recent example for the Blue Jays to snag on.
“Of course,” Schneider said. “Just yesterday we sat here and said, OK, if you say it’s July 23rd and you’re six and a half runs out of first place in the division, you’re saying that’s achievable. I know it looks a little different now in terms of records and there’s more teams involved, but yeah, you look at that, you look at the Red Sox, you look at the 2021 Braves, who didn’t get over .500 through August 6th You’re waiting for things to change and I think you’re hanging on to the players who are performing better, who can perform better, and you’re looking for ways to try to do it faster or faster.
“Baseball is stupid, we talk about it all the time, and it could go down the drain,” he continued. “We all know we need to turn things around now and we’re disappointed that it hasn’t happened, but there’s always hope until there’s hope. That’s the beauty. And that’s what we’re talking about, just facing it head on.”
Thursday’s win increased the Blue Jays’ playoff chances from a season low of 7.3 percent to 8.7 percent. This is the type of slow incremental increment that is needed for a low probability outcome to become a reality.
“It’s just a game at this point,” Springer said. “To win the game, you have to do whatever it takes. Everybody understands where we are and what’s at stake. At the end of the day, you don’t want to push, but you have to play freely and, you know, not be afraid to lose. Just go out there and play with your hair on fire and we’ll see what happens.”
This is also Scherzer’s approach.
Thinking about what the front office can do is “not our job,” he said. “I understand the question. Fair enough. But, literally, our job is to go out and play baseball and win a baseball game. There’s nothing else we can do. Once we get past that deadline and whatever happens, then we can talk about what’s going to happen. But until that decision, until that day, your job is to go pitch and go one-and-out.”