Poor start didn’t tell entire tale of Kevin Gausman’s season

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Kevin Gausman has a perspective on the game of baseball only the most successful at the highest level of the game share.

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It’s the result of years in the game and years playing at an elite level.

It is what allows him to walk away from a disappointing 2024 season, both for his Toronto Blue Jays and for him personally — despite a career-high-tying 14 wins — and know that not everything has to change or be fixed.

Gausman’s 2024 came to an end after his 31^st start, a six-inning, one run 6-1 win over the Boston Red Sox.

He finishes the year with a 14-11 record and an 3.83 ERA in his 12^th season in the big leagues.

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The numbers are by no means bad, but the fact that they didn’t help propel his team to a post-season berth and that his start helped put the Jays in an early hole leave a bad taste.

Gausman’s most telling comment in his look back at his season was simply this: “I wish I would have been throwing the ball like last year.”

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Give Gausman credit for making the season as successful as it was.

The way he started — 0-3 in his first five starts with that first win not coming until the end of April — understandably was tough for a guy coming off a Cy Young-worthy campaign the year prior.

But rather than hang his head, Gausman went back to work, simplified his mechanics and got back to throwing the ball to the point where his team was never out of game when he was on the mound for the final three months of the year.

Since the beginning of July, in the 14 starts that followed, Gausman did not allow more than four earned runs in a start and in eight of those starts allowed two or less.

In all 14 starts he made, his team was in the game. He either finished the game himself (once) or exited with his team in the lead eight times.

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Never were the Jays down by more than two runs when he left the game in those final 14 outings.

But what Gausman carries from this season are those early struggles.

“The consistency definitely wasn’t there as much as I would have liked,” he said.

“I thought I did a good job making adjustments when I needed to, but the reality is I had a really bad first month. I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well of late, but yeah, not as consistent.”

A big believer in using his off-seasons to get better — “I always think you learn more in the off-season” — Gausman already is planning on giving his sinker plenty of attention over the next four or five months.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said when the question of off-season adjustments was brought up. “Throwing my sinker more. Throwing it in the off-season, I think it’s going to be a pitch that will allow me to go deeper into games, get first-pitch outs against righties, so definitely that. Everything else I will kind of take a look at, see what I need to do.”

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Gausman believes the work he did since the early struggles in cleaning up his mechanics has him at a point where he’s feeling confident. That is just something he needs to maintain.

The work on the sinker is really a response to a battle that every human being fights, whether they’re a professional pitcher or not: Age.

“That shows that I am on the right track,” he said of the strong finish, “but I’m only getting older, so I need to make adjustments and look at my workload and kind of tweak some things”

One thing Gausman won’t be looking elsewhere for are any tweaks to his off-season regiment.

Whatever shortcomings, if any, his off-season routine may have had in the past, Gausman knows he has developed a routine that protects him.

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So, when the question came about maybe stealing a page from another veteran pitcher’s book of off-season routines, Gausman quickly shut down that line of thinking.

“To be honest, I have put myself in a good position over the course of my career to be very consistent (in terms of) staying healthy, health being the biggest thing, so to be honest I look at a lot of other guys and I try not to do what they are doing.”

Gausman isn’t going anywhere unless of course the Jays decide to trade him, which would be foolish considering starting pitching is the one area where the team appears to be strong, even after this past season of disappointment.

Gausman has finished strong and is under contract through 2026. Jose Berrios is coming off his own solid year and is signed through 2028. Chris Bassitt would have to be re-signed after next season and then there’s Bowden Francis, the real find of 2024.

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When Gausman is asked about the good feelings he has about this starting rotation going forward, it is Francis he mentions first.

“Especially with Bowden,” Gausman said. “I think you have seen his confidence grow and he has proven he is going to be a starter going forward. I always think you learn more in the off-season, especially as a young pitcher, so he’ll take some time off but he’s going to come into spring even better than he did this year.

“He’s such a fierce competitor and just pounds the strike zone so you know those things will translate well.”

Another thing that translates well is a guy who knows what works for him and what he needs to do to be consistent.

Gausman, already ahead by that measure, took another step forward in what was a trying, but individually successful, year for him.

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