Blue Jays forced to make emergency pitching decision before series against White Sox

The Toronto Blue Jays are switching up their pitching plans for series against the Chicago White Sox. With Eric Lauer originally scheduled for Saturday's game (Apr. 4) but according to reports he is suffering from an illness and will be scratched. Lauer will now pitch Sunday instead while Saturday's game will either be a bullpen day, or the Blue Jays could call someone up from the minors.

While there are a lot of unknowns right now, what the Blue Jays do know is it won't be Trey Yesavage being called up.

Blue Jays starter for Saturday's game against White Sox up in the air

The reason Yesavage won't be making his season debut on Saturday is because he is scheduled to pitch in a rehab outing for the Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays on Friday. While it is expected that Yesavage will pitch around three innings if all goes well, and that is great news for his long-term health, the immediate decision doesn't assist the Blue Jays for their upcoming game against Chicago.

According to Mitch Bannon of The Athletic, the sickness is going around the clubhouse and Lauer has caught the worst of it. Hopefully, he will be able to make a full recovery so that he can continue his hot start to the season. Lauer got into the sixth inning in his first start of the season, last week against the Athletics. He struck out nine batters while allowing two runs on three hits and a walk.

Lauer has done everything the Blue Jays have asked of him for the last year, going from a swing-man role, to pitching in the rotation, to going back to the bullpen and was sparingly used toward the end of the year and into the playoffs. He then lost his arbitration case in the offseason and had to settle for a reliever's salary instead of a starters, even though there was good chance he would start some games this season.

This is also not the way the Blue Jays drew up their pitching plans going into the year. Of course it is hard to have every emergency plan in place for something like an illness, but the Blue Jays spent almost the entire offseason ratcheting up their depth for that area of the team. But with injuries piling up already so early in the season, Toronto's hand is being forced to address these issues. They still have José Berrios and Shane Bieber working their way to getting ready for a full season in addition to Yesavage ramping up as well.

Regardless of the injuries, the Blue Jays pitching has been a big reason for their 4-2 start to the year and Dylan Cease will look to keep that going this afternoon against the White Sox.