No relief from spiralling bullpen
Expected to be one of baseball’s best, group has worst ERA in majors 35 games into season
The Blue Jays’ lack of depth in the starting rotation has been a known problem for more than a year. The shortage of reliable arms in the bullpen? Well, that has come as a bit of a surprise.
The Jays expected to have one of the best group of relievers in the majors this season. Instead, through the first 35 games of the season, they possess one of the worst. The Jays’ bullpen is last in the majors with a 5.31 ERA. Only three teams are striking out fewer batters per nine innings and only Tampa Bay’s relievers have served up as many home runs. A supposed strength has become a major weakness.
The issues are tied to a pair of injuries suffered by veterans Chad Green and Yimi Garcia. Green is on the 15-day injured list and hasn’t pitched since April 15 because of a shoulder issue. Garcia, who allowed just one earned run in April, has yet to pitch this month because of a sore back.
The Jays were supposed to have enough reliable arms that they could survive without a couple of their top options, but that hasn’t been the case. Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza and Genesis Cabrera have all struggled. Nate Pearson has been hit or miss.
On nights when the dominant Garcia is unavailable, manager John Schneider has been forced to pick his poison. He either has to get an extra inning out of his starter or hand the game over to a bullpen whose only regular reliever with an ERA below 4.00 is the soft-tossing Trevor Richards.
The roster construction of this bullpen has been an issue, too. Mitch White opened the season as the long reliever but was traded away for cash. Wes Parsons had a brief audition for the role and was released. The 37-year-old Paolo Espino made two appearances and has a 6.06 ERA at Triple-A Buffalo.
The absence of any versatile multi-inning arms was particularly noticeable Sunday. The Jays brought back the erratic Alek Manoah to make his first big-league start in nine months without any reliable backup plan in case he struggled. That meant when the Nationals started teeing off like it was batting practice, Manoah had to stand there and take it.
A 6-1 lead soon became a 7-6 deficit as Schneider was forced to get at least four innings out of his struggling right- hander. He had to use four different relievers to get through the rest of the game, with each giving up an earned run along the way.
There have been a lot of complaints from the fan base about the usage of Swanson, who has surrendered home runs in three of his last four appearances. The 30-year-old was a key setup man last year, when he posted a 2.97 ERA. This season, he has surrendered 11 runs in just six innings.
Swanson, who missed a significant amount of time this spring with an elbow issue, clearly doesn’t have his best stuff right now. He likely shouldn’t even be in the big leagues — he should still be on a rehab assignment, working out the kinks — but since he’s on the roster, Schneider has no choice but to use him. Who else can he turn to? Mayza and Cabrera, the primary lefties, have ERAs of 6.17 and 6.23, respectively. Pearson has been up and down, allowing seven earned runs over 12 1/3 innings. Zach Pop and Brendon Little belong in Buffalo. The only guys left are Richards and closer Jordan Romano, who needs to be saved for the ninth inning.
The only thing that’s going to clean up this mess is a return to health for Garcia and Green. When those two are throwing well, the Jays have a formidable back end of the bullpen. When they’re not, the late-inning depth is paper thin.
In the interim, the Jays are playing with fire. After Manoah got beat around by the Nationals in his season debut, Schneider was asked by reporters in Washington whether he would get another start. The question must have been rhetorical because whoever posed it already knew the answer.
Of course Manoah is getting another start. Not because he earned it, but because the Jays don’t have a single candidate to replace him until Yariel Rodriguez returns from the injured list. The same logic applies to the bullpen where the options for multi-inning relievers has become completely bare since the departure of the injured Bowden Francis.
The current state of the Jays’ lineup is a dysfunctional mess for a team that entered Monday’s offday ranked 24th in the majors with 3.66 runs per game. Unfortunately, the outlook for the pitching staff isn’t much better despite the presence of four reliable veteran starters.
And that, folks, is how a team with aspirations for the post-season instead finds itself three games under .500 and last in the AL East.