CHICAGO — Kevin Gausman spent Monday sorting his affairs after being dealt to the Chicago Cubs the night prior, but he still kept up on what was happening ahead of the trade deadline. He sent Daulton Varsho a “Go ‘Stros” text when the centre fielder was sent to Houston and followed, with understandable interest, everything else the Toronto Blue Jays did. By the time pencils were down, he was impressed.

“I thought they did really well for the future,” Gausman said Thursday morning, before his new team beat his old one 3-2 in 11 innings in the makeup of a June 21 rainout. “They got controllable starters, guys who have really good stuff, obviously, (Jose) Soriano, the biggest name that they got. I've always said the pitching department over there is great and I think Pete (Walker, the pitching coach) is going to do wonders for those guys, so that's cool, that's exciting for them. I thought they did a great job of taking advantage of the market and unfortunately the situation that we put ourselves in. Listen, if a couple of us that got traded would have had good years, we’re probably not getting traded. That's just the reality. But I thought they took advantage of what they had to, and you can't blame them for it.”

The awkward space the Blue Jays found themselves in as Aug. 3 arrived led them to walk opposite tracks at the deadline, and how that approach plays out in the short-term will be........

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