John Schneider had both good news and bad news for the Blue Jays' pitching staff.

Trey Yesavage felt good after a conditioning start with Triple-A Buffalo and could pitch for Toronto as soon as Sunday in Texas against the Rangers but said that despite how he feels, it is up to the higher ups to decide.

That's a real, specific timeline finally attached to his return from knee surgery, and a positive checkpoint after a rockier rehab outing earlier in the process.

The news wasn't all encouraging, though. Shane Bieber suffered a setback and will need to delay his next side session.

With just 10 games left in the regular season, including today's matinee against Detroit, Bieber's runway back to the mound is shrinking fast.

A delayed side session at this point in September makes an actual 2026 return increasingly unlikely, even if the injury itself isn't necessarily worse.

Why every game left carries direct playoff weight

Toronto started play two games back of Cleveland for the third and final wild-card spot.

The Rangers sit 1.5 games back of Cleveland themselves, half a game ahead of Toronto in that same crowded race.

That positioning makes Sunday's series in Texas enormously important, not just as a potential return spot for Yesavage, but as a direct swing in the standings against a team Toronto is chasing.

Getting Yesavage back would give Toronto a real, healthy arm right as the schedule runs out, exactly the kind of reinforcement this rotation has needed for weeks.

Losing Bieber's timeline pushes him further toward an offseason recovery instead of a late-season boost, a disappointing but not unexpected outcome given how thin the runway already was.

With 10 games separating Toronto from the end of its season, every update like this one carries real weight on whether the Blue Jays close the gap or watch this wild-card chase slip away.