The Toronto Blue Jays are playing with fire when it comes to their bullpen. They have put the momentous pressure on them to perform at a high level, but their significant usage this season. In the beginning, it was out of necessity with their starting rotation taking an injury and a performance hit.
In the early part of the season, it looked like it was starting to work. Between the close games and Jeff Hoffman performing at an elite level to preserve the save, the Blue Jays might have found the recipe. Then it all started to blow up in their face.
Close wins turned to close losses and now the once successful philosophy doesn’t look so bright. Sure, you could blame the bullpen, but how much of that truly falls on them? After all, close games come down to pitching, but it could also be an effect of poor offense, which the Blue Jays also suffer from.
Where do the Toronto Blue Jays go as bullpen pressure boils over during recent skid?
Toronto is in trouble. It has lost seven of the last 10 games and 12 of the last 16 and are amidst their second four-plus loss streak of the season. What is going wrong? The obvious is to blame pitching, but it’s deeper than that.
The Blue Jays offense has been miserable this season. They have just three games with more than four runs scored. They don’t have a problem hitting as much as getting timely hits. Which is why their bullpen faces so much pressure to seal the win.
This season, the Blue Jays bullpen was one of the strongest in MLB before the collapse. That’s not to say they can’t get back to where they were, though. In April, per The Athletic, the Blue Jays’ bullpen ranked 12th in bullpen ERA and had the league’s best strikeout rate.
During April, they were 11-14. That had nothing to do with the bullpen and everything to do with bad offense. But this is the hole the Blue Jays have dug themselves into. It can work, though. The Detroit Tigers relied heavily on their bullpen last season and it got them to the AL Division Series.
The Blue Jays will have to get better offensive production, first and foremost. That will alleviate some of the pressure on the bullpen to be the difference. They’ll also need to get healthy in their starting lineup and hope they don’t have to continue to churn out relievers just to get by.
The good thing is their only 4.5 games back from AL East division lead so they still have a chance. But exhausting their bullpen this early in the season won’t do them any good come the second half of the season.