After gruelling 53-pitch inning, all eyes will be on Blue Jays Kevin Gausman on Saturday

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The good news is Kevin Gausman’s right arm did not fall off after that 53-pitch inning at Yankee Stadium in New York this past Sunday.

The bad news? Well, the Blue Jays are hoping against hope there isn’t any.

Gausman is scheduled to face the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday at the Rogers Centre, flip-flopping his spot in the rotation with Friday’s starter Chris Bassitt in the second of a three-game weekend series. Only then will we get a true idea how much that disaster of an outing may or may not affected the right-hander’s 34-year-old throwing arm.

Jays general manager Ross Atkins said on Friday that Gausman is “okay” and that he “handled (the Bronx bombing) well.” Still, in this day and age when so much about baseball is workload management and arm care, it was a stunning turn of events.

As it unfolded in real time, manager John Schneider acknowledged that he kept hoping that Gausman would get an easy out to end the carnage, helping ensure that all would be good going forward. That didn’t happen, of course, and there will certainly be some intense interest in how he bounces back, particularly early in Saturday’s game.

“I haven’t told (Gausman) but I probably will … I won’t do that to him again,” Schneider admitted on Friday. “Or anyone.”

In other words, there were some regrets for what Schneider referred to as an inning that made him “kind of feel naked” the longer it took to to reach its merciful conclusion.

The development certainly got play around MLB, with many weighing in on the wisdom of allowing Gausman to make franchise history of the dubious variety, matching a franchise record for the most pitches thrown in an inning.

“It was such an unusual circumstance, the really long at-bats in the last couple ones,” Atkins said. “Obviously it is very rare, but you could see why it did happen.

“I think that (Gausman) handled that well. I think he knows his body and his arm slot very well. I think he’s going to be fine.”

Thinking and hoping will be two strong sentiments heading into Saturday’s contest for many reasons. Foremost is Gausman’s status as an elite arm on the staff, a key component of a rotation that has been excellent through the first month and change of the season.

In the larger view, the last thing that the Jays can afford now is to lose Gausman, Bassitt or Jose Berrios for even a short period of time.

This is a rotation — as good as it has been — that has shown some minor signs of teetering of late. There is still no bonafide fifth starter in the absence of Max Scherzer and his lingering thumb issues and more recently, some wobbles from Bowden Francis. The Jays will be hoping that the latter is just an outlier when compared to the brilliance Francis displayed last fall.

At least Atkins was transparent of the reality in the short term, admitting on Friday that he’s actively looking for an arm, either via trade or free agency.

“We also need to consider external alternatives,” Atkins said. “We have a couple of things in the works that are more on the depth front.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like a GM bursting with confidence in the alternatives. With Scherzer, there is at least muted optimism that he’s on the right track as he continues to throw daily, but he’s still weeks away from dealing from a major league mound in a game.

Atkins said the “flashes” from Easton Lucas (presumably the two good ones, not the poor starts in his fill-in role) were encouraging, but he was sent down to triple-A Buffalo to regroup. Eric Lauer is another option, after his outing earlier this week, as is Jake Bloss, the team’s No. 6-ranked prospect, who has been solid in his last two appearances in Buffalo.

“We can work around it for a period of time, for sure, with the reliability and dependability of those four (starters) and certainly some of them going deep into the game helps,” Atkins said of the rotation as a whole.

Meanwhile, in the bigger picture, Atkins is willing to give a slight passing grade to his team, which took a 15-16 record into its game against the Guardians on Friday, especially after a two-game winning streak snapped a 1-8 run..

“Obviously it has to get better,” Atkins said of the uneven at best attack. “We’ve worked tirelessly over the last year and a half to correct that and do believe in the adjustments that have been made and do believe that good things are coming.

“But we can’t rest on that.”