Add Shane Bieber to the Lengthy List of Blue Jays Injuries (Again)

Sometimes, the injury bug just hits one team harder than others. This year, it's the Toronto Blue Jays.

Shane Bieber is the latest player to hit the injured list, as he has been placed on the 15-day IL with right teres major inflammation, retroactive to August 21. Chad Dallas was recalled to replace him.

According to Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, Bieber felt the issue in his bullpen session on Sunday, and John Schneider described the injury as mild to moderate. He will not throw for two weeks, with no timetable beyond that.

Even though his season is not officially over, the Blue Jays only have 30 games remaining, and two weeks without throwing leaves Bieber with very little time to build back up before the end of the regular season.

For Bieber and the team, this comes at an inopportune time; Bieber had been pitching his best baseball lately. After struggling during his first few starts off the IL, Bieber looked much better in his last seven games, pitching to a 3.08 ERA with a FIP that supported it. The highlight was his most recent start against the Rays, in which he went seven innings, threw over 100 pitches, and struck out a season-high seven batters.

Bieber originally returned to Toronto after picking up his $16 million player option in the offseason, but after he began the season on the IL with elbow inflammation, injuries found him again. He’ll end up with only 11 starts for the Jays in 2026, barring a late-season comeback.

The timing is also unfortunate for Bieber, who is set to become a free agent at the end of the season. After missing the majority of the 2024 campaign and a large portion of 2025 recovering from Tommy John surgery, he’s now battled both shoulder and elbow injuries in 2026. That will add another layer of uncertainty for teams interested in signing Bieber for 2027.

Bieber's injury further muddles an already complicated pitching puzzle. Like Bieber, Trey Yesavage began the season on the IL, then returned to the Jays, and now he's back on the list. Patrick Corbin, who had made 15 starts for the team, is also out with a shoulder injury. Yimi García, Cody Ponce, and José Berríos, who were all supposed to play an important role in the pitching puzzle, have combined to throw less than three innings all season.

Spencer Arrighetti is stretching out after returning from the IL last week, while Jameson Taillon and Joe Mantiply are still working their way back.

The extent of the Blue Jays' pitching problems becomes even clearer when looking at Baseball Prospectus’s injury data. From a WARP perspective (Baseball Prospectus’s version of WAR), no team in baseball has lost more projected value due to injuries than the Toronto Blue Jays.

Kevin Gausman and Eric Lauer have both been traded, and even some of the Blue Jays' pitching depth lower down the chart has taken a hit. Jake Bloss, who came from the Astros at the 2024 deadline, was eventually supposed to be a key part of this rotation, as was Bowden Francis, who would have had a very real opportunity to show what he could do in 2026. Instead, injuries have kept both pitchers off a major league mound all season.

For now, the Blue Jays will start a bullpen game today against the Royals to fill Bieber's initial turn in the rotation, and as long as Arrighetti and Taillon return without setbacks, they’ll rejoin the starting five. That will leave the team with a rotation of:

• Dylan Cease
• José Soriano
• Max Scherzer
• Spencer Arrighetti
• Jameson Taillon

Surprisingly, Scherzer is now the longest-tenured Blue Jay of the group.

The injury comes at a rough time, as the Blue Jays find themselves thick in the AL Wild Card race, and any chance they have at making the playoffs relies on them playing competitive baseball down the stretch. Their remaining schedule is full of teams they are directly competing with in the standings, and the rest of their opponents are below .500, meaning if the Blue Jays can keep winning games, they have a chance to get into the playoffs. FanGraphs has their playoff odds at 10.4%.

For Shane Bieber, it's back to the rest-and-rehab process, something he’s been getting all too familiar with. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, they’ll have to find a new way to piece together their pitching puzzle, which is no new challenge for them either. It's been a season of trying and making rapid adjustments on the fly, and with Bieber's latest injury, the Blue Jays will be forced to make another one of those adjustments, this time with their playoff chances hanging in the balance.