Jays Shuffle Rotation: Koehler To Debut Thursday, Happ Pushed To Friday

Mark your calendars — the Tom Koehler era is set to begin!

With journeyman Nick Tepesch on the paternity list (can we prove he’s even having a kid and this isn’t just a new and creative way for the Jays to work around the system?!), the newly-acquired Koehler will make his first start as a Blue Jay on Thursday afternoon. The team will also push J.A. Happ back a day so he can start the series-opener against the Twins on Friday.

I was going to do some digging to see if there was some kind of competitive advantage to starting the righty Koehler against Tampa Bay rather than lefty Happ based on splits, but… meh. Koehler owns a 7.92 ERA and has been bad against everyone this season. So if I had to venture a guess, I would assume that the Jays would rather have Happ, the better pitcher, go against the slightly-above average hitting Twins, while Koehler, the shittier pitcher, can go against the slightly-below average hitting Rays.

I dunno. It makes sense to me!