Green gives Blue Jays needed bullpen depth with Romano, Swanson uncertain for Opening Day

DUNEDIN, Fla. – All too often before Chad Green’s elbow finally gave out midway through the 2022 season, his mindset was split between competing as hard as possible on the mound and searching for ways to simply get through the day.

“As crazy as that sounds, when you’re pitching through stuff, you’re just like a day at a time, let me see what I’ve got today, try this, maybe it will take some pressure off my elbow, stuff like that,” he explained. “It’s always in the back of your mind.”

Nearly 22 months clear of Tommy John surgery, the 32-year-old right-hander is relishing being free of that stress this spring with the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s enjoying a normal ramp up, throwing a scoreless nine-pitch inning during Friday’s 5-1 win victory over the Boston Red Sox, with likely one more outing on tap before the regular season.

And whereas he used to think about “how does this not hurt my arm,” before coming into games, “now it’s like, OK, I trust the arm is healthy and my arm feels good, let’s pitch and focus on the sequencing and how we’re moving our body, stuff like that.”

“I’m still working on feeling my mechanics and feeling like I’m like driving the ball through the zone,” Green added. “That was the point today, attack the zone and go from there. It was definitely a step in the right direction of what I want to be for most of the year.”

Green’s presence in the Blue Jays bullpen became all the more important with fellow relievers Jordan Romano (elbow inflammation) and Erik Swanson (forearm tightness) suddenly uncertain to be ready for Opening Day next week.

Manager John Schneider said Swanson threw for a second straight day Friday while Romano could resume throwing Saturday, but with the season opening next Thursday against the Tampa Bay Rays, there isn’t much runway, even if they aren’t starting from scratch. Complicating the decision is that injured list stints can only be backdated to March 25, making April 9 the earliest possible return date for pitchers who open on the IL, and the Blue Jays wouldn’t want to be without two of their top relievers for 11 games if they might be ready much sooner.

That’s opened up a number of bullpen scenarios heading into the final days of camp – Zach Pop and Nate Pearson are in play but the Blue Jays could opt for more length with Kevin Gausman’s status still uncertain — with Green’s mindset being, “just get those guys healthy first, make sure they feel comfortable coming back and are ready to come back, not rushing the process.”

“To make it the whole season in the big-leagues as a reliever, you’re going to need a lot of guys because it’s a gauntlet,” he continued. “Guys are ready to step up. It’s tough to replace those high-level leverage innings. The ninth inning is a different beast, but I think we have the group to do it, we have the depth of guys to be able to step up and pitch big innings. You just want to feel confident enough to let them take their time. Even though we want them back as quick as possible, it’s a long season. Get healthy first and we’ll manage it from there.”

While Schneider said he hasn’t fully thought through how the Blue Jays would handle the ninth inning if Romano isn’t ready out of the gate, the first two names he mentioned as possibilities were Green (11 career saves) and Yimi Garcia (21 career saves).

Green’s years of experience in providing dominant leverage work with the New York Yankees is one of the reasons the Blue Jays in November exercised a $21-million, two-year option included as part of a creative and clever contract.

The sides agreed to a deal that included a salary of $2.25 million last year, which he mostly spent recovering from his Tommy John surgery before joining the club in September, and three options.

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The Blue Jays first had the choice of a $27-million, three-year option. If declined, Green received a $6.25-million, one-year player option. If he declined, the Blue Jays then received the option they accepted.

Once last season ended, Green didn’t know what to expect – “It was just like a, ‘Hey, we’ll be in touch,’ kind of thing,” he said – but he didn’t stress about the outcome after striking out 16 batters over 12 innings in 12 outings with 1.1 shutout innings in the post-season.

“I was pretty confident I was going to be able to get a job this year,” Green said. “So it was like, I would love to be back, but I completely understand if they go another direction. But we were definitely ecstatic when they called and told us what was happening.”

In that way the creative contract worked as designed, the Blue Jays giving Green a place to successfully rehab his injury while he gave the club a chance to lock in a proven AL East leverage arm if all went to plan.

Green could have taken a more conventional deal, but “I just trusted that they can put me in the best position,” he said. “I was kind of useless for a majority of the year, so it took a team with a bigger plan. There were only a few organizations that were willing to do that. And this was one of the few.”

The addition helped build out the relief depth that is sure to be tested, if not right out of the gate while Romano and Swanson recover and build up, then at some point down the road once the inevitable attrition begins.

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