Blue Jays gifting the Yankees their rotation savior just keeps getting worse

Ryan Yarbrough's had quite the MLB career. After working as a swingman for the Rays from 2018 to '22, Yarbrough spent the past three seasons in the baseball wilderness.

After spending the 2023 season with the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Dodgers, Yarbrough spent part of the 2024 season with the Dodgers before joining the Blue Jays midway through the season in a trade.

Yarbrough ended up throwing 31 1/3 strong innings out of the bullpen. Although he went unsigned in free agency, he ended up signing a minor league contract with the Blue Jays right at the start of spring training. While it was a minor league contract, that just seemed like window dressing ahead of an eventual MLB callup.

That callup never came.

Yarbrough a minor league Article XX(b) contract in the offseason, which gave him an opt-out five days before Opening Day. When the Blue Jays said they weren't going to call him up, he left camp and signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the Yankees to work out of their bullpen.

And two months into the season, he's been one of New York's best pitchers.

Blue Jays gifting the Yankees their rotation savior just keeps getting worse

Yarbrough enters play on Wednesday with a 2-0 record and a 3.06 ERA in 12 games (35 1/3 innings) pitching in a variety of roles. After starting the year in the bullpen, he moved into the rotation earlier this month due a variety of injuries, and he's had some success in that time frame.

He's gone at least five innings in three of his four starts, and hasn't surrendered more than two runs in any of those four starts.

He allowed one run in six innings with seven strikeouts against the Yankees his last time out, and has a 2.25 ERA in May.

While the Blue Jays pitching staff has been better this year, this could still use an arm like Yarbrough. And that line of thinking gets even worse when you consider the players that made the team over him.

The Blue Jays have cycled through also-rans like Richard Lovelady, Josh Walker and Casey Lawrence in their back of their bullpen this year. Yarbrough's better than all of them by far.

Where Yarbrough landed also matters. It's not like he's doing this for the Diamondbacks or Phillies. He's dominating for a division rival that the Blue Jays are chasing in the standings.

This also isn't a fluke. Yarbrough's in the 99th percentile in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity. He's making batters look foolish, and he's doing it while wearing Yankees pinstripes.

While there's always the chance that he could be a flash in the pan and all of this could go up in smoke (he entered this year with a career 4.21 ERA), the Yankees will want to ride his success for as long as they can.

And every dominant outing will twist the knife in a little more for Blue Jays fans.