It’s been an odd season thus far for the Blue Jays. Everything that we expected to be a strength has been mediocre at best, and that which the popular opinion believed to be a weakness has been mostly excellent. In recent weeks, however, the strangely average offense has started to show some signs of life. They’ve scored ten or more runs in three of their last four games (with a random shutout in the middle), and struggling hitters Edwin Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Kevin Pillar have started to heat up.

The biggest question marks that remain (non-injury division), are still squarely in the bullpen. Joe Biagini is quickly finding out what happens to relievers who don’t miss bats and Gavin Floyd recently went through a stretch where he allowed 10 runs across seven outings. And that’s all without mentioning the revolving door that has been the seventh and eighth spots in this bullpen.

All of that being said, there are some encouraging things happening out there, and they’re coming from the players we expected to be key contributors at the outset of the season: Drew Storen and Jesse Chavez.

To the outside observer, Jesse Chavez started the season very well. After all, he was sporting a 1.69 ERA through his first 11 appearances. Chavez wasn’t giving up many of his own runs…but he had inherited 11 runners, and six of them had come around to score. That’s truly terrible. This would be why ERA alone is a really bad estimator for relief pitchers. His rough pitching did eventually start to hurt his own numbers, as he would give up five runs in his next four innings of work, as well as two more inherited runs (out of two).

Since then, Chavez has righted the ship. In 9 2/3 innings across seven outings since May 28, Chavez has allowed just a solitary unearned run, struck out nine, and has stranded all six inherited runners.

At first glance, that would appear to be merely a small sample size issue. If you want, you can find a good nine-inning cross-section for any reliever. However, Chavez has completely altered his repertoire:

As you can see, Chavez has dumped the twoseam fastball almost entirely, and has gone with the cutter to try and get right-handers out. He is also throwing changeups at a similar rate to his curveball, whereas he had thrown none prior to May 28. He wasn’t awful against righties, but they were still hitting him deep (with a line of .200/.194/.429). Since then, righties have hit .211/.286/.211. That’s a nice improvement, but the switch is against lefties makes it look like nothing:

He has dropped two pitches from eight or more percent usage to down below two percent, and has increased his changeup usage by a whopping 22.3 percentage points. Before May 28, lefties were hitting .435/.581/.696 against Chavez. Since then, they’re .077/.077/.077 in 13 plate appearances. Some of that is mere regression, of course, but clearly the switch has worked.

This is especially important, as the Jays are struggling to find a capable left-handed reliever. Brett Cecil is still hurt (though throwing off a mound), Franklin Morales is still nowhere close to a return from his phantom arm injury (his rehab seems to be counting the $2M roster bonus), and Aaron Loup has been dreadful. If Chavez can continue to be a reliable reverse split pitcher, it’ll be a huge boon to the pen. The effective change is repertoire gives some hope.

The other reliever the Jays reliever on whom the Jays placed extremely high hopes was Drew Storen. Storen was expected to lock down the eighth inning and serve as a bridge to Roberto Osuna in the ninth. Clearly things haven’t gone as planned. Through his first 22 2/3 innings, Storen has a 6.04 ERA. While his ERA estimators like cFIP (100) and DRA (4.15) believe he has been somewhat unlucky, Storen clearly has been hit very, very hard this year.

The biggest culprit has been the disappearing velocity. Typically in the 94-95 mph range and touching 97, Storen has pitched the entire year at 92-93, with a max of 95. That’s still plenty hard enough to succeed in the big leagues, but the margin for error is much, much thinner. As Storen found out quickly, that tends to cause problems, especially in the AL East.

Like Chavez, things have started to turn around a bit lately for Storen. He has a 3.18 ERA in his last 12 appearances, and a 2.16 ERA in his last nine. He did allow both of his inherited runners to score (somehow the only two he has inherited all year), but they were on second and third with one out against very tough Boston team. That’s not to forgive it, but it’s somewhat mitigated.

There are a few things of note with Storen. First, he’s throwing his fastball a bit harder (averaging 93.5 up from 92.6). Those are certainly encouraging numbers, though still not back at his career levels. More importantly, he is throwing his slider harder, at 83.7 mph up from 81.5. This is right back in line with his career numbers.

With the increased speed on the pitch, Storen is throwing more sliders (42.3 percent up from 34.1) in lieu of his changeup (5.9 percent down from 14.7). This has always made some sense, as Storen’s slider has always been one of baseballs best. He is still getting swings and misses on the changeup (four out of eight pitches), but the slider has turned back into an out pitch. In that first block of games (up to May 15), hitters were slugging .476 against Storen’s slider. Since then, they are slugging .250.

Once again there are some small sample caveats, and he still leaves too many fastballs up in the zone which get hit for extra bases, but as with Chavez, there are signs that of an attempt at an adjustment, with decent results to this point.

With the addition of Jason Grilli, and with Floyd pitching somewhat better following eight days off, the pressure isn’t as high as it once was on Chavez and Storen. However, if even one of them can sustain their recent performance, the bullpen will suddenly get a lot better. If both of them can, this team can take off. The adjustments at least give us some hope, and that’s all we can ask for.

Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports