TORONTO – Even before Hyun Jin Ryu stops an operation that will end his season, and perhaps his remaining term in the Toronto Blue Jays, strengthening the targeting team would be on the to-do list before the deadline for GM Ross Atkins.
Now, however, a supplement that further isolates the initial rotation has shifted from a good necessity to a mandatory one, with the insurance policy provided by Ross Stripling exercising and paying well.
It can be argued that the right-hander’s performance in seven starts in two separate turns so far is an upgrade over what Ryu, limited by what Atkins described as a “chronic trauma” to his elbow-collateral ligament, may have delivered.
The value of this type of protection cannot be overestimated.
But the combination of Rue’s loss and Nate Pearson’s final star season eroded the club’s depth to survive another rotation. And an important consideration is what a reasonable workload looks like for Stripling, given that he peaked at 122 innings in the big tournament during the 2018 All-Star season and scored 101 last year.
It is already 43 innings and with the remaining 3 months of the season, there are about 100 innings to cover from this place of rotation. A factor in the fact that there is no clear sixth starter who beats down at the gates of the triple-A Buffalo – Thomas Hatch, veteran Casey Lawrence and intriguing Max Castillo are the leading options while Pearson accumulates – and there is a risk that the club must decide.
“There’s one person on our list, there are a few guys off our list who could be alternatives,” Atkins said, describing what the starting depth of the club looks like now. “We can think about it creatively. And then obviously we need to consider deadlines and commercial gains that could increase our depth there. “
Atkins, not surprisingly, did not give up on what type of pitcher the club could target – “we have some flexibility to think about it in a creative way”, he said – but thinking creatively about the place of rotation is not a convenient place to applicant.
As early as spring, Pearson would have been the obvious answer, but Mono delayed the start of his season, he was still catching up, and fears of endurance probably led him to take on some kind of hen or hybrid role.
He has worked in two innings since joining Buffalo during rehab, and Atkins’ response was “not really” when asked if Ryu news could change the way Pearson has recovered.
“But it’s a very real option, maybe more creatively,” Atkins added. “We’ll see. I’d rather just go out with Nate one by one. Really encouraged by his last one (two excluded innings and three outs on June 8 against Worcester)… and we’ll do it step by step. We won’t change our plan because of the injury of Ryu.
The bigger picture, however, is that Blue Jays will have to adjust, which adds a new wrinkle to their plans for deadlines. Atkins cites “depth in areas complementing skill sets in others” as ways to find profits elsewhere on the list, his vague language being both part of the standard deadline tricks and an indication of how his list is positioned.
Ryu’s signing of a four-year deal worth $ 80 million has been an important step in the club’s development so far, signaling the market to move from reconstruction to ambitious contender and paving the way for the subsequent signings of George Springer and Kevin Gaussman.
Ryu was a finalist for Cy Young during the pandemic summer of 2020 – throwing seven high innings against the New York Yankees in Buffalo to win a place after the season in the extended playoffs – and then was the glue of the rotation in the first half of 2021 ., when the staff was still recovering.
His performance began to wane in August, and his inconsistencies spread through the season as he hit the list of elbow injuries after his second outing and then made four more starts before being removed again.
Ryu visited specialist Dr. Neil ElAtrache last week and will undergo surgery on Friday, which will be either a complete revision of UCL, better known as Tommy John’s surgery, or a partial ligament repair.
According to Atkins, there is no acute ligament damage, but rather a “chronic injury over time.”
“Another way of thinking is… it’s stretching the ligament,” he said, adding later, “He would feel it on a trip. So it will tighten after four innings or so. This also points to the MRI’s indication that it is chronic in nature, that there is no acute injury, but over time this stretching and pulling causes tightening and (causes) loss of dexterity or a sense of performance or indeed completion. “
A partial overhaul would open the possibility of a return next year, while Tommy John would mean that the four innings that Rue threw on June 1 against the Chicago White Sox were his last with the Blue Jays, as his contract expires in late 2023.
In any case, the injury brings 2022 to a premature end, with some far-reaching consequences as a result.
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