Blue Jays consistently failing to capitalize on Gausman's incredible campaign

Kevin Gausman's second campaign with the Toronto Blue Jays has been strong enough that it isn't surprising when he performs the way he did on Wednesday night.

Holding a dangerous Baltimore Orioles lineup to just two runs over six innings with eight strikeouts and a single walk would be noteworthy for most pitchers, but for the Blue Jays ace it was a typical outing.

Unfortunately for the 32-year-old, there was another aspect of the night that was awfully familiar — a total lack of run support. Toronto's offence was completely shut out by Baltimore in a 7-0 loss, and following the outing Gausman has received the second-least run support (3.16 runs per nine innings) of any pitcher to make at least 15 starts in 2023.

The starter's comments following the game called for his teammates to pick it up, a reasonable request from a guy performing at an elite level to a group that's underachieved.

Gausman surely gotten used to his teammates letting him down this season, even if it's clear that he's done his part.

He leads the American League in strikeouts (195), FIP (2.86), and fWAR (4.5) while ranking in the top-eight in ERA (3.23), xERA (3.81) and innings pitched (150.1). Somehow the Blue Jays are still below .500 (12-13) when he takes the hill.

There is plenty of randomness involved in teams' records with particular starters on the mound. For instance, Toronto was 23-9 when José Berríos started in 2022 and he led the AL in earned runs allowed. The Gausman situation is still not the sort of thing that would happen if the offence ranked better than 16th in the majors in run scoring.

A Blue Jays lineup performing the way it was projected to entering the season, would make it virtually impossible for the team to post a losing record in starts by a guy with Cy Young credentials. This is a statistical quirk, but it's one that encapsulates Toronto's underwhelming 2023.

Back in 2010, Félix Hernández famously won the Cy Young with a 13-12 record at a time when pitcher wins carried far more weight than today in the perception of a player. Even in that season, the Seattle Mariners were able to at least produce a .500 record in his outings (17-17), and they ranked dead-last in the majors in run-scoring — 74 behind the 29th-best team.

The Blue Jays may well end the season with a winning record in Gausman's starts, but there's a good chance they broadly fail to capitalize on one of the best seasons a starter has produced in franchise history.

If Toronto continues with its current rotation order, the right-hander would get seven more outings. Here's what his final-season numbers could look like — both according to his current pace and if he matches his ZiPS projections:

Whichever way you slice it, you're looking at one of the best seasons a Blue Jays starter has ever produced. At his current pace he'd finish the season with 249 strikeouts — a total bested only by Roger Clemens in 1997 and 1998. His projection would put him fourth.

A 5.8 fWAR would be the eighth-best total a Blue Jays pitcher managed in a season, tucked in behind those Clemens years, four Roy Halladay gems, a surprising 2000 campaign from David Wells and Pat Hentgen's 1996 Cy Young effort. For what it's worth, Toronto went 177-95 when the pitchers in those aforementioned seasons were starting. A 5.5 fWAR would still rank 12th in the team's 47-season history.

To be fair, fWAR isn't the perfect metric for converting to team performance because it prioritizes peripherals rather than runs allowed, but it's a good measure of a pitcher's individualized performance, and it's tough to knock Gausman's.

The fate of the 2023 Blue Jays will likely rest on whether the team's offence can lift up its performance in a general sense, not just in the ace's starts. But failing to build upon Gausman's top-shelf production start-in and start-out is a problem for a club that can ill afford to miss opportunities in a close race.