Trey Yesavage did not hide his frustration after the Blue Jays' late-start mess against Seattle, and he had every reason to be annoyed.
The rookie right-hander had already warmed up and was ready to go. Then he sat for 20 minutes because Toronto had been given the wrong anthem time, according to John Schneider.
That is not a small inconvenience for any starter. Once a pitcher is loose and ready to attack, having to stop, wait, and then ramp back up can throw off the whole rhythm of a day.
Yesavage did not go overboard with it, but he also did not pretend it was nothing. “I'm not going to say that affected me, but start time at the time should be followed,” he said.
That line landed the right way. It was pointed without turning into a complaint show, and it made clear he noticed exactly what happened.
Schneider backed him up too. The manager said Yesavage “battled and limited hard contact,” which is probably the most important part of the whole story.
Because that is what stood out after the disruption. Even with the awkward delay after he had already warmed, Yesavage still found a way to compete instead of letting the game get away from him.
Why Yesavage had a real reason to be upset
This is where the baseball part matters. Starting pitchers build their whole day around timing, from stretching to bullpen work to the walk from the dugout. When that sequence gets broken late, it is not just annoying. It can change the feel of every pitch.
And Yesavage has already shown he can handle strange conditions before. Sportsnet noted last month that he shook off a 2-hour 11-minute rain delay at Yankee Stadium and still gave the Blue Jays 6 shutout innings.
That is why this latest moment says something useful about him. He may not have loved the delay, and he clearly thought the timing should have been handled better, but he still stayed in the fight.
For a young starter, that matters. There is a difference between getting rattled by a broken routine and pitching through it, and Yesavage chose the second path.
It also says a little about his edge. He did not shrug it off with some empty cliché. He gave an honest answer, held the line, and still did his job.
That should play well in Toronto. Trey Yesavage had every right to be irritated by the late-start confusion, but the bigger takeaway is that even after the mess, he still looked like a pitcher the Blue Jays can trust to compete through something weird.
Did Trey Yesavage handle the late-start mix-up the right way?
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