Blue Jays rotation coming back together after a month in the wilderness

While the Toronto Blue Jays have played good baseball in the month of May, their rotation has not.

The team’s excellent 15-10 record has come in spite of their starting pitching as the offence has come to life and the bullpen has been stellar. Toronto has gotten only 129.1 innings out of their starters in the month – ranking 27th in baseball – and the group has pitched to an ugly 4.82 ERA.

Joe Biagini’s slow build-up, Mike Bolsinger’s struggles, and even a nasty outing from Mat Latos have contributed to those worries, but starting Tuesday it looks like they are on the way to alleviation – beginning with the return of J.A. Happ.

“Yeah [Happ] will be out there tomorrow night,” manager John Gibbons confirmed, before adding slyly, “Unless something changes overnight.”

For his part Happ is thrilled to get back on a major-league mound for the first time since April 16.

“When [the injury] happened initially you never know how long these things are going to take,” he said prior to Monday’s series opener against the Cincinnati Reds. “It feels good to be back.”

Happ has made two appearances since his injury, once at extended spring training and one outing for the Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays, where he went three innings allowing three runs on seven hits.

“It felt good,” Happ said of his rehab start. “I wasn’t particularly good as far as the results of that game, but coming out of it the next couple of days felt pretty good.”

The veteran southpaw will be limited initially as he hasn’t built his way back to a full start just yet. On Tuesday, the bullpen will be expected to do more than their share given the restrictions he’ll face.

“Depends how the game goes,” Happ said about the workload he anticipates for his first start. “Seventy-five pitches give or take.”

Happ isn’t the only southpaw returning to the fold, it appears that the Blue Jays will also be welcoming back Francisco Liriano on Friday.

“He’d be eligible. He felt really good yesterday [in a rehab start at Triple-A],” Gibbons said. “That would be Biagini’s day and of course Stro’s day would be Saturday. If we wanted to give everybody an extra day we could do that and give everyone an extra day… We haven’t given it a definite yet, but I don’t see why not.”

Although Liriano has struggled so far in 2017 with just 0.1 WAR and a 6.35 ERA to show for his seven starts, he pitched through some pain earlier in the year and Gibbons is optimistic that’s well behind him.

“He’s been out a while and that’s all gone,” he said. “So really it’s just about building it back up.”

With two starters potentially returning in a four-day span, and another in Biagini growing in front of their eyes, the Blue Jays’ rotation is returning to form. Less than a week after they brought back two all-star infielders, this club is making another huge step towards restoring the roster it was meant to field.

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