Varsho is expected to play a handful of games at the Triple-A level over the next few days and could potentially be activated to make his season debut this upcoming weekend. The 28-year-old center fielder has been on the shelf since Opening Day continuing his recovery from offseason shoulder surgery.

The 28-year-old slugger will play a couple of games at that level before moving his rehab assignment to Triple-A Buffalo. The expectation is that he’ll play around five games there before rejoining the Blue Jays. It sounds like most of next week will be spent on the rehab assignment with a return to the big league club coming the following week against the Yankees.

He’ll take a brief pause in the middle of the week to be with his wife for the birth of baby Varsho, but is expected to be ready to head out on a minor league rehab assignment immediately afterwards. He was cleared to play in an extended spring training on Monday without any throwing limitations and will take live batting practice on Tuesday. There’s a chance he’s ready to make his season debut in a couple weeks before the end of April.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters Varsho hasn’t progressed to throwing in game action yet, but is trending in the right direction. Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith notes that the furthest Varsho would need to throw in game action is roughly 175-200 feet, which means he’s almost there from a ramp-up standpoint. The 28-year-old center fielder opened the regular season on the injured list recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. There should be some clarity on his return timeline once he starts getting into minor league rehab games for Triple-A Buffalo.