The Toronto Blue Jays are riding high against the Yankees, having secured the series with a 4-1 win and now looking for the sweep Sunday. They'll do it without Lazaro Estrada, though.
The most impressive part of that win came without a traditional starter at all. Braydon Fisher, Ricky Tiedemann, Simeon Woods Richardson, Mason Fluharty, Spencer Miles, Tyler Rogers and Louis Varland combined for a genuine bullpen game victory, seven arms working together to shut down New York.
That kind of collective effort says plenty about how deep and versatile this pitching staff has had to become given the injuries that have hit the rotation all season.
On the heels of that win, one insider predicted Toronto will actually lose Estrada for good.
"Lázaro Estrada was DFA by the Blue Jays, and he will very likely be claimed by another team off waivers," Francys Romero wrote.
That prediction lines up with the roster rules discussed just days ago, since another option would have required Estrada to first clear waivers, a real risk given how many times he'd already been sent down this season.
Why losing Estrada would be a real, if modest, cost
Estrada, 27, originally joined Toronto's organization on a minor league deal back in January 2018, a long tenure within the system before ever reaching this point.
In eight games with the Blue Jays, he's posted a 5.54 ERA with nine strikeouts and one save across 13 innings, a rough overall line but one that included some genuinely useful stretches along the way.
Losing him to a waiver claim wouldn't be a devastating blow given his numbers, but it would mean Toronto loses a depth arm entirely rather than simply cycling him back to Triple-A as it's done multiple times already.
It's a bit like finally having to let go of an item you've kept "just in case" for years, the actual loss smaller than the symbolic one of losing the option altogether.
Does losing Estrada actually hurt Toronto's bullpen depth in any meaningful way, or does the emergence of arms like Tiedemann and Woods Richardson make his departure a non-issue at this point?
Toronto goes for the sweep Sunday, riding real momentum that's outlasted even this kind of roster churn along the way.
Will Lazaro Estrada get claimed by another team off waivers?
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