Jose Berrios and John Schneider are staring at the biggest Blue Jays injury call of the season.
Berrios will undergo right elbow surgery on Wednesday, with Dr. Keith Meister set to perform the procedure after meeting with him over the past week.
What Toronto still does not know is how deep the repair will go. The surgery will address the stress fracture and loose bodies in his elbow, but there is also concern about a ligament issue.
That is why the recovery window is so wide. If the procedure only handles the fracture and loose bodies, the comeback could be measured in months. If the ligament needs work too, the absence could stretch to 12 to 18 months.
This did not come out of nowhere. Berrios opened the season on the injured list with a stress fracture in his right elbow, then hit another setback during a rehab assignment when soreness returned and his velocity dipped.
John Schneider had already warned that surgery was on the table. By Saturday in Detroit, the decision had moved from possibility to plan.
Berrios' most recent rehab turn had already raised the temperature around this case. The ball was not coming out the same way, and Toronto backed him into more testing instead of letting him keep climbing toward a return.
The Blue Jays now have to brace for the worst-case timeline
This is where the story gets heavier for Toronto. If the ligament needs repair, Berrios is not just delayed. He could miss the rest of 2026 and a large chunk of 2027.
That would leave the Blue Jays even thinner in a rotation that has already been forced into patchwork mode. Berrios has not thrown a big-league pitch this season, and Toronto has been trying to bridge innings around multiple pitching injuries.
The clip tied to the update lands with real weight because this is not routine manager talk. It is Schneider acknowledging that the club still does not know whether this is a shorter repair or a franchise-shifting one for its veteran starter.
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That uncertainty is the hardest part. The Blue Jays have a surgery date, but they do not yet have a real answer on what Berrios' future looks like once the doctors get inside the elbow.
For Berrios, the next step is simple and brutal. Get through Wednesday, wait on the full findings, and see whether this becomes a months-long setback or a 12-to-18-month blow.
For Toronto, that means one thing. The Blue Jays are no longer waiting on rehab progress. They are waiting on surgery results that could reshape their rotation for a long time.
If Jose Berrios misses 12 to 18 months, should the Blue Jays trade for another starter right away?
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