Braydon Fisher is penciled in to open for the Blue Jays on Thursday against the Yankees, giving Toronto another bullpen game in a series that has already leaned hard on relief arms. Fisher is expected to make his second start of the season and the third start of his career.
The Blue Jays beat New York 2-1 on Wednesday after dropping the first two games of the series, and they did it the same way they have handled much of the matchup: by going deep into the bullpen. Toronto has used four relievers in each of the first three games, and that workload points to another night in which the bullpen will be asked to carry a large share of the load.
Fisher has been one of Toronto’s steadier arms when called on this year. He is 2-1 with a 3.08 ERA and has also held up against the Yankees in a relief role, going 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA in six career relief appearances against New York. The club is expected to lean heavily on him as the opener before Spencer Miles likely comes in as a bulk reliever.
Miles has made 12 of his 13 appearances out of the bullpen, but the right-hander has shown he can handle length. He pitched 3 2/3 innings of two-hit ball in Saturday’s win at Detroit, throwing 56 pitches to 14 hitters, and he also fired 38 pitches in three scoreless innings in a 6-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on May 10. That kind of workload makes him the logical bridge if Toronto wants to avoid overtaxing the rest of the staff.
Across the field, Carlos Rodon is scheduled to start for the Yankees in the finale, and his recent track record against Toronto gives the matchup extra weight. Rodon went 0-1 with a 5.63 ERA in his outing against the Blue Jays in Game 3 of the 2025 American League Division Series, when he allowed six runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings on Oct. 7 before New York rallied for a 9-6 win. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has seen him well, going 11-for-19 in all matchups with Rodon and launching a two-run homer off him in the first inning of that ALDS game.
Rodon’s regular-season numbers against Toronto are also not clean: he has a 2-3 record with a 4.72 ERA in nine career regular-season starts against the Blue Jays. The Yankees left-hander has had two difficult outings this season, and he said after one of them, “They didn’t go well at all.” Manager Aaron Boone said, “Both of the innings where he gets dinged there, it’s two outs and nobody on, and then some long at-bats,” and added, “There’s some really encouraging signs. We’ve got to dial in the command now.”
For Toronto, the decision to start Fisher is less about surprise than survival. The Blue Jays are trying to get through one more game without burning out a staff that has already been asked to piece together three straight nights against one of their top division rivals. Fisher gives them a fresh first turn, Miles offers length, and the bullpen again becomes the center of the night.
The matchup also carries the memory of last October, when the Yankees managed only one win against Toronto in the postseason and Rodon’s rough start was part of it. This time, the Blue Jays enter Thursday with the advantage of having steadied the series, but they are still relying on the same formula that has defined the week: short starts, long relief, and just enough offense to stay alive.
