The Jays can’t afford to let their rotation spin out of control. Hyun-Jin Ryu needs to produce

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This article was published 15/04/2022 (1633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With their cleanup hitter and starting catcher on the shelf, likely until May, the Blue Jays aren’t as liable to just go out and bludgeon their opponents for the next little while, which means that the vaunted starting rotation is going to have to start living up to its pre-season billing.

The good news is that while the first trip through didn’t go terribly well, to put it mildly, things have been looking up through the beginning of the starters’ second sorties.

The transcendent Alek Manoah threw six innings of one-hit shutout ball in his season debut Monday night at Yankee Stadium, but rotation mates José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Yusei Kikuchi combined to post an ERA of 11.25 over just 12 total innings in their first go-round — an average of nine outs per start for the quartet of former all-stars.

Blame some of that on opening-day jitters (Berríos) or “first game with a new team that just gave me a bunch of money” (Gausman, Kikuchi), and the majority of it on a spring training schedule that was two weeks shorter than usual.

Now that we’re fully back in the swing of baseballdom, it’s easy to let slip the fact that spring training was less than a month long this year, in the wake of the 99-day lockout. Instead of their usual 32 to 35 exhibition games, the Jays played only 17. Instead of five spring starts, most of the pitchers only got three.

What should have been their final buildup outing of the Grapefruit League schedule before pulling back in the finale to prep for opening day was instead their first start of the regular season, and it showed.

• Berríos managed only one out on 34 pitches.

• Gausman was steady, blowing up a bit in the third inning but still managing to right the ship and get through five.

• Ryu looked strong through three innings, but the wheels came off in the fourth and he could not get it back together.

• Kikuchi got smacked around all over the ballpark in the Bronx, and was exceedingly lucky to allow only three runs before coming out in the fourth.

This is not what was expected when the Jays doled out $277 million (U.S.) to Berríos, Gausman and Kikuchi over the winter (they still owe Ryu $40 million as well). But again, it was only one start each at a time in their regular buildup when the games usually still haven’t started to count.

Berríos and Gausman’s second sorties were much, much better than their first. Berríos recorded 14 more outs Wednesday night than he did on opening day, dominating the Yankees until he was taken to the woodshed the third time through the order. The righty left after five innings in a 3-3 tie, having lowered his ERA from 108.00 all the way to 11.81.

Thursday night, Gausman was even better, although the Jays lost his start and won with Berríos. The 31-year-old flashed his killer splitter and notched nine strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings, holding the top seven hitters in the scary Yankees lineup to a combined 2-for-23 while not issuing a walk.

With the Jays in a run of 30 games over 31 days to start the season, Ross Stripling got the start on Friday night in order to give the starters an early breather, and the Jays are hoping that will pay dividends with Ryu going to the mound on Saturday with an extra day of rest.

The big lefty was the Jays’ ace in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, leading them to the playoffs and finishing third in AL Cy Young voting. He got off to a terrific start last season, but had a final six weeks to forget. The ugly 8.38 ERA he posted over his last seven starts of 2021 means the leash will be shorter this year, since it’s not as easy to just shrug off a poor outing or two by looking at his track record when the recent one is so bad.

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One would think that the same applies to Kikuchi, since his second half of last season (5.98 ERA, .906 OPS against, less than five innings per start) was bad enough to get him yanked from the Mariners rotation down the stretch as they battled to the final weekend for a wild-card spot. I’m not sure it does, though.

The Jays believe that they can get Kikuchi right — that he can have a turnaround similar to Robbie Ray and Steven Matz last season — under the tutelage of Pete Walker and the coaching staff. That and the three-year contract they gave him last month mean that he’s bound to get a few extra chances to get things right.

They would never say it out loud, but Ryu’s stock has dropped significantly since last August. It’s no coincidence that the rotation was set up so that he would be the one starter to miss the series at Yankee Stadium, and that the Stripling start came on his scheduled day.

The 35-year-old will get the chance to turn his season around starting Saturday afternoon and isn’t likely in any imminent danger of losing his job — let’s not forget he had a career ERA of just 2.95 entering last season — but his margin for error grows slimmer and slimmer each time out.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness