Blue Jays’ bullpen remains work in progress

BOSTON— It’s such a queer term: Bullpen.

Even in a sport that stretches the slang out of vernacular, the word has almost a cellblock or cuckoo’s nest undertone. The pitchers way out there, segregated from teammates, detached from the game until summoned, sometimes to face just one batter, match-up situational, or for an inning, perhaps two. If things are going badly for a starter bounced early, then long innings of chorus line relief. Think Jays, circa May. Baseball announcer Joe Garagiola once described the ’pen thusly: “A bullpen is supposed to be a place for warming up pitchers. That’s what it is a little bit of the time. Mostly it’s a place for eating peanuts, trading insults with the fans, second-guessing the manager and picking all kinds of silly all-star teams, like the all-screwball team or the all-ugly team or the all-stack-blowing team.”

First used in print, according to my research, in a 1915 Baseball magazine story. But its origin has long been disputed. Casey Stengel, then managing the Mets, told a reporter in 1967: “You could look it up and get 80 different answers, but we use to have pitchers who could pitch 50 or 60 games a year and the extra pitchers would just sit around shooting the bull, and no manager wanted all that gabbing on the bench. So he put them in this kind of pen in the outfield to warm up . . . it looked like a place to keep cows or bulls.”

Another etymological version was offered by Johnny Murphy, who spent a dozen years in the Yankee bullpen, middle of the last century. “It came from Bull Durham tobacco, I was always told. All the ball parks had advertising signs on the outfield fences and Bull Durham was always near the spot where the relief pitchers warmed up.”

Almost Rockwellian and beautifully baseball, that, in sepia tones.

In a modern and specifically Blue Jays context, however, not so pretty; the team’s V-spot actually, for vulnerability, hardly capable of protecting a lead through the first two months. Less of a spoiler, fortunately, with a prodigiously potent lineup that leads the majors in runs.

Toronto cannot dine out endlessly on offence that glitters. An eightgame win streak studded with longball whammy and walkoff victories — layered atop stabilized starting rotation — has masked the club’s deficiencies on the back end.

In April — four blown saves (call them Miguels) — relievers accounted for 761⁄ innings of work with 28

2 walks and a dismal ERA of 4.11 in 23 games. Five blown saves through 24 games in May, though the ERA came down considerably to 3.63. Nearing the halfway point of June, merely 19 innings required of the relief cadre and an immensely improved 2.37 ERA, one blown save.

Ten blown saves on 16 save opportunities — success rate of 37.50.

Ghastly.

Now rust may be settling on some of those arms, less frequently needed. But there is confusion too in the bullpen, a sense of disorder with no genuine closer and slapdash management by John Gibbons.

“If and when the rotation does well, it gives us a bit more of defined roles,” says Liam Hendriks, the Aussie who’s racked up a brace of Ws as a middle reliever. “We know what we’re going to come into, which guys are coming in. When starters can go deep in games, then you’re not over-worked. You don’t have to worry about ‘am I up today, am I down today?’ You’re going to come in and do your role. You don’t have to get in multiple innings.

“You have a guideline of when you’re going to start getting ready, so guys can get into more of a routine and everything kind of flows. It’s not set in stone by any means but each guy’s got a part where they know — this is when I’ve got to get ready by, the seventh or the eighth inning. It just makes it easier to mentally prepare.”

At this point of the season, it’s sketchy out there in Toronto’s holding pen — 17 holds by the way — beyond the go-to clutch boon that has been Roberto Osuna, arguably over-used.

Some observers persist in the belief that Aaron Sanchez should be returned to the closer role, knocking Brett Cecil back to the eighth inning, which can’t happen unless GM Alex Anthopoulos goes out and secures another starter rather the reliever — possibly two — which he’s pursuing. Jonathan Papelbon is again bruited about as the preferred shiny object, though the price would be steep — in salary assumed or high pitching prospect forfeited.

Anthopoulos is rapidly running out of internal options from the Toronto-Buffalo shunting yard. Phil “Don’t-call-me-a-lefty-specialist’’ Coke joined the team Friday.

“Far as I know, my role is when they give the ball I get outs. However long that ends up being, that’s however long it ends up being.”

Here, have a peanut.