The Toronto Blue Jays have been consistently among the best teams in the American League for the past four seasons; however, they have not made it past the AL Wild Card round, winning a grand total of zero playoff games since 2020. Thus, the Blue Jays are entering the 2024 season with a chip on their shoulder. However, the AL East is a rather unforgiving division housing some of the best hitters in the MLB. As a result, the Blue Jays haven't hit the ground running, going 6-7 through the first two weeks of the season.

One of the chief struggles for the Blue Jays has been their pitching; at present, they rank 23rd in the MLB in starting pitcher ERA, and that's thanks in large part to the strong starts Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi have had. Middle of the rotation starter Chris Bassitt then called out the Blue Jays rotation without sparing himself, urging them to get back on track given how little margin of error there is in the AL East.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m pretty disappointed in our starters so far. This is my third start and two of my starts were terrible, in my opinion, so I’m no help to the problem. The biggest thing for us is getting our starters going. I’m so confident in the guys we have, it’s just that the first 10 or 11 games have been pretty rough for us, outside of Berrios,” Bassitt said, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com.

Yusei Kikuchi at least got the Blue Jays starters back on track, pitching a quality start in their 6-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners. But there is clear room for improvement for the other members of their rotation, most especially for ace Kevin Gausman.

Should the Blue Jays be concerned about Kevin Gausman?

Kevin Gausman has been pitching at quite a high level for the past four seasons, putting up a combined 17.4 WAR during that span — an impressive figure. Gausman has done nothing but excel since signing with the Blue Jays in 2021, putting up a 3.25 ERA while striking out 442 in 359.2 innings of work, making him well worth the five-year, $110 million contract he put pen to paper on.

However, the beginning of 2024 has been rather dreadful for Gausman. His surface-level stats are horrendous, as he has put up a 9.53 ERA in two starts (5.2 innings) this season, and he pitched just 1.1 innings in his most recent start after the New York Yankees tagged him with five earned runs (six total) in a short span.

His peripherals bring even more concern towards his performance; his fastball velocity is down, although he isn't worried about that too much. But in conjunction with a shoulder injury that limited him during Spring Training, there must be concern regarding Kevin Gausman's status moving forward.

Chris Bassitt: pot meets kettle

Since 2019, Chris Bassitt has been one of the most underrated starting pitchers in the MLB. In fact, from 2019 to 2023, Bassitt has been worth 12.1 WAR, earning his keep as a solid middle of the rotation starter. Last season, Bassitt was a workhorse, pitching 200 innings while tallying a very respectable 3.60 ERA.

2024, much like it has been for other Blue Jays starters, has been a struggle for Bassitt, however. Bassitt has been walking opponents left and right, while he's also allowing an inordinate number of home runs. The sheer amount of hard contact Bassitt is allowing is concerning. Nonetheless, it's good that Bassitt is aware of the problem, as the first step to rectifying one's woes is to be aware of them.