3 Blue Jays all reach important career milestones in the same week

2024 may already be a lost season for the Toronto Blue Jays. But that doesn’t stop them from displaying their excellence when it comes to achieving some personal goals. This past week, three Blue Jays managed to reach some important milestones in their careers.

After recording his first career complete game shutout early this year, Jays’ starter Kevin Gausman registered his 100th career win against the Los Angeles Angels this past Sunday. As usual, he did so in typical Gausman fashion. With his fastball and splitter doing their work, he induced mainly weak contact and gave up only one earned run on 2 hits with a whopping 10 strikeouts over seven innings pitched in an 8-2 Toronto victory.

Given Gausman’s pedigree, some may find it surprising that it has taken until his age 33 season to reach the century mark in wins. But recall that he didn’t develop into a consistent, dominating starting pitcher in the league until he joined the San Francisco Giants back in 2020. That was when his devastating splitter actually became his go-to pitch, having made the adjustment with the Cincinnati Reds in the previous year, and the rest has been history.

For fellow teammate Chris Bassitt, he notched his 1000th career strikeout against the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday. The commemorative moment came in the second inning when he struck out Red Sox shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela on three straight pitches. Unfortunately, that was probably the highlight of the game for the Jays as they would go on to lose 3-0 in a two-hit shutout by Boston. Nevertheless, Bassitt was strong in the losing cause, going 6.2 innings and giving up just one run on 5 hits with 9 strikeouts.

Finally, to many Jays’ fans it sure hadn’t felt like it, but manager John Schneider recorded his 200th career win with the club when they defeated the Red Sox 7-3 in the night game on Monday. In doing so, Schneider actually became the third fastest manager in franchise history to reach that total. On top of that, with his current managerial record of 201-171, his .540 winning percentage also ranks him third on the Jays’ all-time list, with a minimum of one season at the helm. As much as Schneider has been scrutinized for his style of managing during his tenure with the Jays, he is quietly turning out to be one of the more successful managers in team history.