Chris Bassitt is back at Rogers Centre on Friday night, and this time he is starting for the Baltimore Orioles against the Blue Jays in the opener of a three-game series. The right-hander who spent last season in Toronto now opens a weekend that could matter in the standings, with the club he left still trying to settle its pitching plan.
Bassitt’s return comes after a season that has been far lighter than the ones Toronto got used to. He has been limited to 85 1/3 innings and carries a 4.96 ERA, a sharp drop from the workload that once made him such a steady part of the rotation. During each of his last three seasons in Toronto, he reached at least 170 innings, which is why his presence against the Blue Jays is more than just a reunion. It is the kind of start that can shape a series before it gets going.
The move also lands with a little more edge because Bassitt wanted to stay. He said his preference was to return to the Jays, but Toronto did not bring him back, and the Orioles signed him to a one-year deal worth $18.5 million. That decision now sends him into a game against the team that knew exactly what it was getting: a durable starter who could hold an offense down when the margin for error was thin.
Toronto has already seen that version of Bassitt once this year. On May 28, he allowed one run over six quality innings against the Jays. That outing matters because it is the clearest reminder that even after injuries trimmed his season, he still has the kind of command that can make a lineup work for every run. For a Blue Jays team that has been struggling to score, that is not a small problem.
The pitching picture on Toronto’s side is more unsettled than the matchup on paper suggests. Max Scherzer will start the opener, and he is one of only three healthy starters in the rotation. Spencer Arrighetti has taken the fourth spot, and there is no fifth starter after Jameson Taillon’s recent injury. The Blue Jays have not announced their pitchers for the final two games, which leaves the club deciding whether it can keep the rotation intact or use Thursday’s off day to skip the fifth spot and bring back Dylan Cease and José Soriano on normal rest.
That is the part of this series that goes beyond the reunion. Toronto is not just facing Bassitt; it is trying to get through three games with a thin staff and a schedule that may force a choice between patching the rotation and pushing its best arms again sooner than planned. The opener puts Bassitt in the middle of that decision, and the next two games will tell whether the Blue Jays can avoid paying for the kind of depth they no longer have.
