The 2026 Major League Baseball postseason race is hot right now, and the Toronto Blue Jays are right in the mix.

With 18 games remaining, the Blue Jays sit just one game out of the final wild card with a tiebreaker over the Cleveland Guardians. There’s still a lot of baseball remaining, and teams like the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles are still in the hunt as well.

A big reason why the Blue Jays are in the spot they’re in is due to starting pitching health. José Berríos and Cody Ponce have been on the injured list for most of, if not all of the 2026 season. Even now, the Blue Jays are without Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber, forcing them to rely on Spencer Arrighetti and a bullpen day.

Yesavage and Bieber may be back before the postseason, but the big question is, how would the Blue Jays line up their rotation ahead of the potential best-of-three wild card series? Let’s find out.

Dylan Cease would clearly be the starter of Game One in the potential wild card series. The Cy Young candidate was acquired for such a moment; leading off the series and setting a competitive tone is extremely important.

The other advantage is being in the best situation to pursue a series lead, putting the opponent against the wall. Toronto’s lineup would be facing the opposition’s best arm, making it a pitching duel. Cease is a strikeout machine with elite pitchability, good matchup IQ, and plays an aggressive game with his pitch repertoire.

Cease has been dominant all season long. Entering his start against the Athletics on Monday,  the right-handed pitcher possess a 2.25 ERA, a 35.5 K%, and a 10.5 record in 156.1 innings of work. Since the start of July, the righty has a 1.36 ERA over 73 innings of work, cementing himself as an American League Cy Young candidate.

Kevin Gausman would’ve been a good bet to pitch in a wild card game, but he was traded for Brett Bateman ahead of the trade deadline. The Blue Jays replaced him with José Soriano, who would start Game 2 of the Wild Card Series.

Soriano has a different game from Cease; he’s less on the strikeout-king side, and more of a weak ground ball ground ball type of pitcher. Featuring a fastball that sits on average just over 97 mph, Soriano has a K% of 23.1, but a strong ground ball percentage of 51.7%.

His command has been shaky at times this season, but as his best, Soriano is dominant. Look no further than him being the best starter to begin the 2026 season. The key to his success is having clean innings, throwing fewer pitches, and getting quick outs. Soriano is a good bounce-back pitcher in the series; game two makes sense, as he’s the right elimination-game pitcher and a shut-the-door type guy.

If Yesavage is healthy, he’d start the winner-take-all Game 3 of the wild card series. However, his availability remains in the air and Max Scherzer currently would be the third starter.

There’s some precedence here too. Scherzer started a crucial Game 4 of the American League Championship, Game 3 of the World Series, then Game 7 of the World Series. The future Hall of Famer has been there and done that, including making huge starts for the Blue Jays in the past.

Scherzer has also been pitching significantly better since coming off the injured list. Over his last eight starts, the 42-year-old has a 3.76 ERA and 3.96 FIP, with seven of the 17 earned runs he’s given up coming in one game.

As it stands now, this is the best-case scenario for the Blue Jays in the wild card series. Their rotation will be oddly different from the one projected at the beginning of the year. Even with this rotation, success is very possible if the bats can get going.