Blue Jays’ John Schneider explains Kevin Gausman’s recent slump

The Toronto Blue Jays are one of the hottest teams in the American League. On Thursday, however, the hot streak took a slight detour as the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Jays 9-5 to end the series. Toronto took the series two games to one and won 8-1 on Wednesday night. Blue Jays’ starting pitcher Kevin Gausman had another miserable performance in the series finale loss.

Gausman allowed seven hits and seven earned runs while walking three batters. He struck out four but was taken out of the game in the 5th inning. He ended at just 4.1 innings and 81 pitches thrown. Ugienio Suarez homered once again to get Arizona on the board early. Suarez followed with an RBI double, and then Pavin Smith also smashed a homer. Guasman allowed too many extra-base hits, which really hurt the Jays in this contest.

After the game, Blue Jays’ manager John Schneider explained why he feels Gausman has been having troubles as of late.

“When Kevin’s ahead, Kevin’s elite. Not getting there has been tough for him.”

This issue seems like it can be an easy fix. Gausman needs to get ahead of counts at a higher rate. This can be said about most pitchers; when you fall behind in a count, the odds are not in your favor. At 34 years old, Gausman has a lot of experience. Hitters also have a lot of film of the right-hander and understand what is coming when they have a good-looking count. If he can work on locating his early-count pitches, then we can see strides from the right-hander. He recently went 8.0 innings, allowing just one run against the Texas Rangers on May 26.

Gausman entered the game on Thursday with taunting numbers. These numbers are well below his career bests. At 5-6, he had a 4.60 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and struck out 84 batters. This recent performance against the D-backs will make his season numbers look even worse.

Gausman’s next start is slated for Wednesday or Thursday against the Cleveland Guardians.