How Gausman completely 'flip-flopped' his 2024 season

This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson’s Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

TORONTO -- In the best of ways, Kevin Gausman has lived most of this season under the radar.

He has a 3.91 ERA, but the 33-year-old right-hander didn’t take his usual path to get there. Since Gausman arrived in Toronto three years ago, we’ve heard the same thing each season, typically after he’s flown through the early months as one of the best pitchers in baseball: August and September are a grind.

This year? Gausman carried a 4.56 ERA through his first 22 starts. The past eight, though, have been fantastic, with a 2.31 ERA and not a single “bad” outing to point to.

“Honestly, the last couple of years, my first half has been good, and in the second half, I struggle,” Gausman said Thursday in Arlington. “This year has completely flip-flopped. I think that has nothing to do -- but probably everything to do -- with Spring Training. I got off to a slow start. I only had one Spring Training start. I didn’t put myself in a great spot to start the season.”

Gausman dealt with right shoulder fatigue in spring. It was nothing scary, but it delayed his ramp-up period, and even for one of baseball’s most reliable starters, playing catch-up early in the regular season rarely works. It’s a steep hill.

Gausman has often dealt with some big gaps in velocity from start to start, which always feels alarming each April until you remember it happens every year. The slow start to the season seems to have accentuated some of those discrepancies, so Gausman’s trends in the early months -- good or bad -- never seemed to last. He was a difficult pitcher to figure out, but a pitcher of his caliber is still perfectly serviceable on a bad day, so the sirens didn’t sound.

Thursday’s outing in Arlington was a great example of what’s allowed Gausman to work around this and come out on the other side looking like his old self. He left after five innings with lower back tightness, which doesn’t sound like it’s anything to worry about, but those were five no-hit innings. After Gausman talked with the training staff, manager John Schneider, pitching coach Pete Walker and teammate Chris Bassitt huddled up with Gausman to make sure he knew what was at stake.

You know you have a no-hitter going … right?

Gausman felt something on his final warmup pitch and knew this wouldn’t be his day. His stuff didn’t feel great. He joked that he had no clue how he didn’t allow a hit.

“If I was 24, I probably would have come out in the first inning, honestly,” Gausman said. “The older you get, the more you know the difference between something that’s really serious or something you can grind through. My biggest thing in talking to the training staff was if I felt like I was starting to throw with just my arm because my back was giving out.”

That’s what the value of experience sounds like. When a pitcher accounts for another injury by throwing only using their arm, that’s when forearm, elbow and shoulder injuries happen. That’s the danger zone.

“As a pitcher, you learn … you’re going to throw pitches every game where you think, ‘That felt weird. That wasn’t right,’” Gausman said. “Until you throw another pitch, you don’t know. I’ve been lucky because I’ve thrown a lot of pitches after feeling something weird that felt fine.”

Now, Gausman has put himself in position to finish the season with a sub-4.00 ERA and 180-plus innings, if he’s able to make his final start. His numbers weren’t always pointed in this direction, but he’s changed the narrative and turned his season around.

Gausman is still a top-of-the-rotation starter, and alongside Bassitt and José Berríos -- plus with the sudden emergence of Bowden Francis -- the top of the Blue Jays’ rotation looks just fine going into 2025. Gausman has two seasons left on his five-year deal, both valued at $23 million. The contract looked good at the time. In hindsight, it’s great.

The Blue Jays have put Gausman in position to make just two postseason starts, though, in 2022 against the Mariners and ‘23 against the Twins. Both were losses for Toronto, leaving Gausman still seeking his first postseason win. He deserves the shot, and coming off a bit of a backwards season, that starts with a normal spring next February in Dunedin, Fla..