Rewind the clock to the end of the 2024 season. The Toronto Blue Jays just had there worst regular season in years. They sold at the trade deadline and there were tons of question marks about the viability of this team to compete in 2025.
Nobody had the Blue Jays making it to the ALCS one year later, let alone winning their fist division title in ten years. But here there are and it’s thanks in part to a couple of shrewd moves by GM Ross Atkins, including the acquisitions of Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber.
Now, with their backs against the wall, the fate of the Blue Jays season rests on the shoulders of these two household names – guys that may only be wearing Blue Jays jerseys for one season or less.
The Blue Jays season could be decided by two of Ross Atkins’ biggest moves
Bieber and Scherzer are arguably two of the biggest named players that Atkins has ever brought in to Toronto. Scherzer is a future Hall of Famer and Bieber, before his Tommy john surgery, was a legit ace of Cleveland and still in his prime. Both are slated to start the next two games for Toronto and these are easily the two biggest games the Blue Jays have played since the 2016 ALCS, a series they fell in five games to the Guardians.
Hoping the Blue Jays don’t meet the same fate as their predecessors, Bieber will be given the ball in Game 3 in an attempt to right the ship. Those 2016 Blue Jays went down 3-0 to Cleveland, and with Bieber on the mound they are hoping they can pick up their first win of the 2025 ALCS against the Mariners in Seattle as they trail 2-0.
The 30-year-old Bieber was acquired specifically for moments like this. When Atkins traded pitching prospect Khal Stephens at the deadline in a one-for-one deal, the hope was that Bieber would be suiting up for Toronto in this kind of atmosphere.
In the regular season, Bieber was 4-2 with a 3.57 ERA in 40.1 innings for Toronto, with 37 strikeouts and only seven walks. However, that success didn’t translate over to his first playoff start, lasting just 2.2 innings against the Yankees, also in Game 3 situation, while giving up two earned runs and five hits and recording just two strikeouts.
This will only be the fifth playoff start for Bieber in his career. He pitched in one game for Cleveland in 2020, where he gave up seven earned runs in 4.2 innings to the Yankees in a 13-2 loss in a wild card game.
But he bounced back the next time the Guardians made the postseason, pitching a combined 13.1 innings against the Rays (in the Wild Card series) and the Yankees (in the ALDS). He struck out 15 batters, and gave up just two earned runs on eight hits, producing a BABIP of .200
The former Cy Young Award winner has also been excellent against AL West teams in his career and specifically against Seattle he owns a 4.90 SO/BB rate in seven games and 43 innings pitched. He’s allowed just 11 earned runs and has a WHIP of 1.209 against the Mariners. As well, in five career starts in Seattle, Bieber has held hitters to a .236/.277/.318 slash line.
Shane Bieber in 21 games vs the AL West
🔸132 IP
🔸2.52 ERA
🔸1.09 WHIP
🔸6.42 K/BB
🔸7-6
Expected to decline his $16 million player option for the 2026 season, who says no to the former CY young? #Athletics pic.twitter.com/uRVpYbtckW
— SleeperAthletics (@SleeperAth) October 12, 2025
The prospect the Blue Jays gave up may go on to have a successful career, but if Bieber can help the Blue Jays win on Wednesday night in Seattle, and then perhaps get another start in this postseason, that trade will be looked upon fondly for a long time.
Scherzer on the other hand , who gets the ball in Game 4, was a free agent signing. A one-year $15 million deal that came shortly before pitchers and catchers were due to report to Spring Training. The hope here was that Scherzer would stabilize the back end of the rotation and maybe find some extra magic left over in that 41-year-old arm of his.
A thumb injury derailed the first half of his season, and when he returned he posted good results through his first ten starts with a 3.47 ERA and 55 strikeouts in 57 innings pitched, although he gave up nine home runs in those ten games.
The Blue Jays will start Max Scherzer in Game 4 of the ALCS. The 41-year-old last started in a postseason game in 2023 with the Rangers. pic.twitter.com/GgX4r9RDj0
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 14, 2025
His last six starts were less than stellar, giving up 25 earned runs in 25 innings and struggling mightily to get out of the first inning unscathed. He accumulated a 13.33 ERA with a 2.407 WHIP and .407 batting average against in the first inning. Those results left him off the playoff roster in the ALDS and the Blue Jays will need Scherzer to have his best first inning of the season on Thursday.
Remember the scene in Rookie of the Year where veteran pitcher
Chet “The Rocket” Steadman (played by Gary Busey) is in trouble late in the game and his Manager (played by Albert Hall) tells him he’s going to take him out. Steadman looks in the dugout and says, “Give me one more.” That has Scherzer and Manager John Schneider vibes written all over it – but hopefully that isn’t a conversation that happens during the first inning.
But maybe that’s all Scherzer needs to give the Blue Jays. One last great outing and it will only come in one of two situations, either he needs to help the Blue Jays even up the series, or he needs to help the Blue Jays keep their season alive. If he can accomplish either of those things, that one-year deal may be looked at as one of the best one-year deals Atkins has ever signed.
