“It keeps me up at night.”
Kevin Gausman wants a ring. That’s why the right-hander signed a five-year contract with the Blue Jays before the 2022 season. The $64 million (U.S.) he’s earned so far, and the $36 million more that he’ll make over the next two seasons, has set up his family for generations, but that’s not why he came north.
“My whole reason why I signed here was the vision of winning here in Toronto,” said the 33-year-old in an end-of-season interview that can be heard on the current episode of Deep Left Field, the Star’s baseball podcast.
“That’s my ultimate goal. All I care about now is getting a ring. I would trade me having a 6.00 ERA right now if I knew we were going to win the World Series next year. Some people might think that’s ridiculous for (someone) to say, but that’s how I truly feel. That’s how much I want a ring. I think about that constantly.”
It hasn’t happened yet, quite obviously, with the Jays having gone more than three decades now without even a trip to the Fall Classic, let alone a World Series win. The last time they got close was 2016, when they lost the American League Championship Series in five games to Cleveland.
On the way to that ALCS, the Jays beat Baltimore in an unforgettable wild card game, winning on Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off home run in the 11th inning. Gausman was in the visitors’ dugout, having pitched the Orioles into that game with a win at Yankee Stadium on the last day of the regular season.
“I remember watching the Blue Jays literally take over home plate and (Rogers Centre) going crazy for 30 minutes,” Gausman said. “Just being in the dugout and the ceiling was literally rattling. In the (visitors’) clubhouse, same thing. The old clubhouse, rattling for 30 minutes. People didn’t leave. It was really cool and now I want to see that here. I’ve seen what it looks like to win a post-season game here, the excitement that that was. As heartbreaking as it was for me, it was like, man, those guys over there, that’s so cool.”
The Jays haven’t won a post-season game since 2016, going 0-6 in the playoffs over 2020, ‘22 and ‘23. Gausman was part of the last two sweeps, against Seattle and Minnesota, and his 2021 San Francisco Giants聽鈥 a 107-win team in the regular season聽鈥 lost in five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series.
The right-hander hasn’t been part of a playoff series victory since 2014, when as a 23-year-old rookie he helped pitch the Orioles to a Division Series sweep of the Detroit Tigers. Baltimore then dropped four straight to Kansas City in the ALCS, a series in which Gausman threw 4聽鈪 innings of one-hit shutout relief.
“I feel like I’ve had a lot of heartbreak in baseball,” said Gausman, going over his decade of watching other teams celebrate in the post-season. “I’ve just had a lot of games where I’m sitting in the dugout, unfortunately, and my season’s over and it stinks, you know? But I try to use it as motivation. I think about those things when I’m going through the grind of the workouts in the off-season. I think about those things a lot.”
It will be a different off-season for Gausman this time, having brought a sinker back into his repertoire. He hadn’t thrown the pitch in a game since 2017, when he only threw one all year, but brought it back this past season as part of an overall change that took hold in early August.
“I made a mechanical adjustment that I probably should have made (with) 20 starts (remaining in the season) that I made probably (with) 10 starts (left),” said Gausman. “It has really had a big impact on my stuff and more specifically my split (fingered fastball) being able to carry the zone for some reason.”
Gausman finished the season with a 3.83 ERA, his worst since 2019, but over his final nine starts of the season, post-adjustment, it was 2.22, with opponents hitting just .194 against him. The resurrected sinker came out 56 times over that span.
He’s excited to work on the pitch over the winter for the first time in a long time, but more excited to get back onto the field at Rogers Centre when the Jays host the Orioles to open the season on March 27, 2025.
“We have the best spring training facility. We have now the best clubhouse and complex here in 海角社区官网in all of baseball,” said Gausman. “We have no excuses anymore. We have to win. We’ve got to win now.”
Gausman will do his part over the winter to make that happen. It’s up to the front office to bring in a few players to help him.
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