Blue Jays' workhorse striving for more efficiency in his game after impressive year

2025 was a career year in many ways for Kevin Gausman. The ace of the Toronto Blue Jays pitching staff got to the World Series for the first time in his 13 year career and ptiched a season that was reminiscient of a by-gone era.

He made 37 starts between the regular season and the playoffs, totaling 223.2 innings - something that hasn't been seen regularly since the 1980s. He led all pitchers in innings pitched and in the number of pitches he threw and the number of batters he faced. It was one of the heaviest workloads of the 35-year-olds entire career, so it may have been somewhat surprising that he was already pitching in Grapefruit League action last week.

But for Gausman, 2026 comes down to not just replicating his success from 2025, but finding ways to be even more effective and efficient in what could be his final season in the big leagues.

Blue Jays' workhorse striving for more efficiency in his game after impressive year

Gausman threw one full inning against the Miami Marlins on Thursday, striking out three, while allowing one walk and one hit. He threw 20 pitches, with 13 of them being strikes and those are the numbers Gausman is looking to "fix" in 2026.

Blue Jays beat reporters Arden Zwelling and Ben Nicholson-Smith talked about Gausman's game plan on their latest episode of the At The Letters podcast as they had a chance to catch up wtih Gausman following his outing. They said Gausman was reflecting on last year and while he was happy about how many games he started and how many innings he pitched, he felt their was room to improve in how to get there again.

Zwelling says, "Gausman wants to push himselft to be more readily available to pitch in the seventh inning, instead of having his day end in the fifth or sixth inning. He wants to increase the amount of innings he pitches, but decrease the pitches thrown and the batters faced."

Nicholson-Smith added, "The dominant pitchers in baseball get through seven innings on 100 pitches, the likes of Paul Skenes, Garrett Crochet, Tarik Skubal. They just get outs quicker, and that's so hard to do. Guasman is an elite pitcher, he has been at that level, so if he could raise that game further that's a perfect goal for him to have."

A more efficient Gausman could be an underrated weapon for this Blue Jays pitching staff. While they have a lot more depth to begin this season than they did last year, having a guy who can routinely go deep into games and pitch effectively over the course of that outing can save so much trouble for the bullpen over the course of the year.

And it's not like we haven't seen Gausman go deep into games before. In 2024 he had two complete games, while last year he had one, in what was arguably his best performance in a big league game. On Sept. 11, Gausman tossed nine innings of two-hit ball, with nine strikeouts, one walk and no earned runs on 100 pitches. By Game Score it was the best performance of his career, notching a 91 on that performance metric.

It's not out of the question that Gausman could have another performance like this, or two, in 2026. It's also not out of the question that Gausman can hit those personal milestones of getting into the seventh inning before he throws 100 pitches. He's shown over the course of his career that he can be one of the top startes in the game, and with a World Series appearance behind him, Gausman will be more determined than ever to get the Blue Jays back into a spot where they are contending for that championship again.