Scherzer, Bieber make Jays' playoff rotation scary and surprising

Before his scheduled second start in the 2019 World Series, Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer woke up and discovered he could barely move his arm.

There was a nerve issue; something had been pinched overnight. He was scratched, which generally happens to pitchers whose wives have to help them get dressed, as was the case with Scherzer that day.

I covered that World Series, and the Scherzer storyline hung over it like a cloud. After the Nationals won the first two games in Houston and then lost three straight to the Astros at home, the fact that he couldn't lift his arm over his shoulder seemed more than a little daunting.

When the Nationals forced Game 7, there was a sense that they'd just see what Scherzer could give them, knowing it might be nothing.

Instead, he pitched five absurd innings. Moving gingerly and laboring after each throw, Scherzer somehow gave up just two runs despite allowing four walks and seven hits. He was like an action hero who takes too many bullets to survive but still defuses the bomb before it explodes.

Scherzer was long gone when the Nationals' late heroics won the game and the championship, but I expect that start to figure prominently in the minds of Toronto's decision-makers when they begin thinking about the Blue Jays' playoff rotation.

On the one hand, it seems a little crazy to give a Game 1 start to a 41-year-old who didn't pitch for Toronto in earnest this season until late June. But even in data-driven modern baseball - and even for a team that cares about that stuff as much as the Blue Jays - it's impossible to deny Scherzer has something that's hard to quantify. He's a gamer. He won't wilt under pressure. Perhaps most importantly, his teammates believe in his big-game mystique.

And so, strange as it might seem for a Jays rotation that's spent two seasons being carried by a trio of reliable if unspectacular veterans - José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, and Chris Bassitt - Scherzer seems likely to zoom past them into a playoff role.

He's not the only one, either. Shane Bieber, the trade-deadline acquisition from the Guardians, remains some distance from proving that he is ready for a prime rotation spot. His scheduled start against the Brewers on Friday night would be just his second for Toronto and his second full stop since April 2024, when he went out with an injury that required season-ending surgery.

But Bieber, 30, has the highest upside on Toronto's staff in terms of lights-out stuff. A Cy Young winner in 2020, he can be dominant when he's on - as he was in his first Jays outing, striking out nine and giving up two hits over six innings. Toronto's front office certainly didn't trade for Bieber so he could fill a bulk role out of the bullpen. If he's healthy and capable, he's a playoff starter.

That makes things a little weird for the three incumbents. Berríos, Gausman, and Bassitt have made eerily similar contributions in 2025, with ERAs ranging from 3.87-4.14 and innings pitched from 150 to 153 2/3. Any one of them is capable of pitching brilliantly on a given night, but they've each gone through rough patches too.

Berríos has delivered quality starts - at least six innings with three earned runs or fewer allowed - a little over half the time, Gausman a little under half, and Bassitt a little over a third.

The Jays' decision between those three would almost certainly come down to playoff opponent, right/left splits, park factors, that kind of thing - and, obviously, their performances between now and October. At least one of them could pitch their way into must-start playoff territory. Still, in the most likely scenario, at least one of them becomes a bullpen guy.

That's a pretty remarkable development. At the All-Star break, when everyone was still getting used to the Blue Jays as unlikely AL East leaders, much of their story was defined by the solid pitching they had received from their three veteran stalwarts. Berríos, Gausman, and Bassitt were durable. They logged innings and kept their team in games. They were the presumptive backbone of a playoff rotation.

This is a great problem to have. They Blue Jays have long boasted some good starting pitchers. But in Bieber, they have someone who, at his best, is scary good. In Scherzer, they have someone who is just plain scary, even when not at his best.

It's not the Toronto playoff rotation that anyone would have imagined in April - although no one would have imagined such a thing in April. But it's the playoff rotation that is shaping up now.

Just one more surprise in a season full of them.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.