Who is Blue Jays' Trey Yesavage and what to know about his meteoric rise with Canada’s team
Before the Toronto Blue Jays’ post-season game against the New York Yankees on Sunday, starting rookie pitcher Trey Yesavage told himself he’d better back up his comment from a day earlier that he is “built for this.”
By the halfway mark of Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series (ALDS) at Rogers Centre, the 22-year-old right-handed starter had, in his own words, “thankfully” made good on his claim, stymying a Yankees lineup that led all of baseball in runs and homers in the regular season over five and a third innings.
Along the way, he struck out 11 batters — including six straight through the third and fourth innings — while not surrendering a hit and walking just one.
In doing so, he set a franchise post-season record for strikeouts and became the youngest starting pitcher in MLB history to not surrender a hit in a playoff game.
When manager John Schneider drew good-natured jeers from the crowd of 44,764 when he made his way to the mound in the top of the fifth to pull the young hurler as the Jays were leading by a wide margin, thanks largely to a grand slam by face-of-the-franchise Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
“I know the fans probably wanted me to stay out there, but it’s a smart thing to do up over 12 runs at that time to not push it,” he said in the post-game press conference.
His dominant performance, which earned a curtain call from the Jays’ faithful, helped secure a 13-7 win to give the club a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series that continues Tuesday in New York.
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— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 6, 2025
All 11 strikeouts from Trey Yesavage’s #Postseason debut ???? pic.twitter.com/q0DyWRKuyf
“This has got to be cloud nine,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine a better feeling right now.”
Here’s what to know about Yesavage and his meteoric rise to stardom with Canada’s team.
Where is Trey Yesavege from?
Yesavage was born on July 28, 2003, to parents Dave and Cheryl Yesavage of Boyertown, Pennsylvania, a borough in Berks County about 80 kilometres west of Philadelphia. He’s the oldest of three boys, with brothers named Cole and Chase.
”They’re my people,” he said, fighting back tears, during an on-field interview with Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae after Sunday’s game.
“They’re the reason I’m here right now and I couldn’t love them more. Mom, Dad, Cole, Chase … I love you guys.”
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— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 5, 2025
An emotional Trey Yesavage joins @thehazelmae after his masterful #Postseason debut. pic.twitter.com/dISKX3QlmV
Yesavage’s parents, along with Cole, were there to witness his heroics on Sunday, with Dave seen on the Sportsnet broadcast enthusiastically high-fiving fans surrounding them after every strikeout.
Yesavage said it’s his dad’s “signature move.”
“He’s been doing it for years,” he said in post-game remarks. “When I was in college, he would run around our basement when they’re watching the game on TV, high-fiving everyone.”
In an interview with Mae from their seats after Yesavage left the game, Dave said his son has always been willing to put the work in, even building a pitching mound in the backyard and tossing at a target when there was no one to catch for him.
“We knew Trey could do it,” he said. “He knew he could do it as well.”
Cheryl, meanwhile, said she loved her son’s confident statement heading into Sunday’s big game.
“He absolutely was built for this,” she said.
"We knew Trey could do it." ????@thehazelmae catches up with Trey Yesavage’s parents after his first #Postseason start. pic.twitter.com/0YSnsiMI82
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 5, 2025
How did Trey Yesavage become a Blue Jay?
Yesavage grew up playing baseball and, after a promising high school career in Boyerton, he was recruited to attend and play NCAA ball for the East Carolina University Pirates in Greenville, North Carolina.
He pitched out of the bullpen for his freshman season and performed well as a starter in his sophomore year, earning first-team All-AAC selection and second-team All-American honours, along with a roster spot on Team USA’s collegiate national team, according to Baseball America .
After an even more impressive third year with the Pirates — one that featured an impressive 145 strikeouts over 93.1 innings — Yesavage was a top prospect in the 2024 MLB entry draft. The Blue Jays wasted no time scooping him up when he was still available at 20th overall in the first round.
“Trey is somebody we have liked for a couple years now, dating back to his sophomore year when we got to see him pitch quite a bit as an underclassman,” Jays director of amateur scouting Shane Farrell told the Toronto Star’s Gregor Chisholm at the time. “As our pick was getting closer and he remained on the board, it was a decision we were really happy to make.”
His rise within the organization this season has been quick, but well-managed by the Jays.
Yesavage stayed in Dunedin to start the 2025 campaign playing A-level, where he overpowered hitters in seven starts before moving on to high-A ball with the Vancouver Canadians, where once again opposing batters had few answers to the hard-throwing 6-4 pitcher in four starts. An eight-outing promotion to AA with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats followed, after which he was summoned to the Jays’ AAA affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons, for six games.
By the end of his tenure in the minors, using a three-pitch arsenal of a fastball, splitter, and slider, he had amassed 160 strikeouts this season.
His MLB debut came on Sept. 15 in Tampa, where he went five strong, fanning nine — a new franchise record for a rookie pitcher’s debut — and allowing a single run on three hits. In 14 innings of work over three starts,
Yesavage collected 16 strikeouts, allowed just five earned runs, none coming on a homer.
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage's parents applaud his record-breaking debut pitching for the Blue Jays.
— DropZone Cooper (@DropzoneCooper) September 16, 2025
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What are teammates and the Yankees saying about Trey Yesavage?
Teammate and Jays’ ace Kevin Gausman, who held the Yankees to a single earned run in Saturday’s 10-1 series-opening win, said Yesavage proved he was indeed built for moments like this.
“He was incredible,” said ace Kevin Gausman, according to Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi . “To do that, in that moment, he’s different. I feel like I have a really good split and I think his is better. I’ll be honest, I’ve never said that about anybody, especially someone on my team.”
A big part of what makes Yesavage such a challenging pitcher is the average angle of his arm at the release point, which is measured by the league’s Statcast at 63 degrees, second-highest among MLB starters after Jonah Tong.
The higher the angle, the harder it is for the batter to pick up what type of pitch might be coming their way and its anticipated trajectory. In Yesavage’s case, it makes his splitter particularly hard to hit.
“He’s throwing from the CN tower, so it’s an angle that pretty much no one else in the big leagues is throwing from,” Jays veteran Chris Bassitt told Davidi. “It’s a look that you can’t really practice, you can’t go back and say, how you treated this pitcher, treat him like that. There’s no real comparison so it’s really hard to game-plan for him.”
In his post-game news conference, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the young righty has “nasty stuff.”
“That split is unlike much you ever run into,” he said, per Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson Smith. “We just didn’t have an answer.”
Yankees slugger and American League MVP candidate Aaron Judge, who walked and struck out to Yesavage on Sunday, also remarked about how tough his pitches are to gauge from the batter’s box.
“It’s kind of right over the top, releasing it right above his head,” he told MLB’s Keegan Matheson. “So everything’s kind of coming down into the zone, and you’ve got to pick it up — it’s either going to stay in the zone or kind of drop down around your knees.”