CHRIS BASSITT WILL START SECOND HALF FOR BLUE JAYS, YUSEI KIKUCHI SCHEDULED FOR TWO MORE STARTS BEFORE TRADE DEADLINE
After having the past few days off for the All-Star break, the Blue Jays will kick off the second half of the season this weekend when they host the Detroit Tigers.
According to Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, Chris Bassitt will lead Toronto’s starting rotation out of the gate on Friday and he’ll be followed by Yusei Kikuchi and Kevin Gausman on Saturday and Sunday.
Bassitt was the best starter on the Blue Jays in the first half of the season. He had some rough starts against the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros to start the year but settled in and has been excellent since. The right-hander has a 3.52 ERA over 19 starts and has logged 107 1/3 innings. Without those two clunkers in Tampa and Houston, Bassitt is 8-5 with a 3.12 ERA.
Kikuchi has had an up-and-down season. The left-hander was excellent in April and May but has been inconsistent in June and July. He posted a 3.25 ERA over his first 11 starts this season but has struggled to a 6.00 ERA in nine starts since the end of May.
A contributing factor to Kikuchi’s results declining over the past couple of months has likely been his inclusion in trade rumours since the Blue Jays fell out of playoff contention. Kikuchi is in the final season of a three-year contract and is expected to be traded to a contending team ahead of the deadline on July 30.
“It’s a difficult time for all of us,” Kikuchi told Keegan Matheson of MLB.som through interpreter Yusuke Oshima following a loss earlier this month. “Not just the position players, but myself included. I’m going out there with mixed feelings. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s a difficult time right now.”
Kikuchi had one of his best starts of the year earlier this month against the Giants in San Francisco, as he struck out a season-high 13 batters and allowed only two runs over seven-and-one-third innings. He followed that up with one of his worst starts of the season in his next outing in Arizona, as the Diamondbacks scored seven runs off Kikuchi in a fifth-inning implosion.
The Blue Jays have Kikuchi lined up for two more starts before the trade deadline. The first will be on Saturday against Detroit and the second will come the following week when Toronto hosts the Texas Rangers. This placement has Kikuchi avoiding pre-deadline series against American League East opponents, the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles.
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2024-07-18T21:34:12Z dg43tfdfdgfd