TORONTO — If there’s one thing the Toronto Blue Jays can be happy with in their star-crossed season, it’s the performance of their bullpen.

Despite minimal financial investment in the group — and a no big names outside of Roberto Osuna — the Blue Jays relief corps has been the strength of the team. On a squad that has been forced to use 11 different starters they’ve been the duct tape holding the leaky boat together.

It’s a group full of pleasant surprises. Ryan Tepera went from a guy constantly shuttling between Buffalo and Toronto to earning a setup role. Danny Barnes has ridden his low-90s fastball to consistent success in a variety of situations. Perhaps the most unexpected breakthrough belongs to Dominic Leone.

Leone came into the season having just completed two seasons where he struggled mightily and spent the majority of his time in the minor leagues. Between 2015 and 2016 he managed just 42 MLB innings with a 7.07 ERA and 6.05 FIP — good for -0.7 Wins Above Replacement.

Even now, he’s unclear on exactly what went wrong during that stretch, one that came after a very strong rookie season with the Seattle Mariners in 2014.

“At that time whether it was mechanics or physically I wasn’t in the right spot to pitch competitively at the major league level,” he said of the time. “It was a struggle, it was tough to identify the main problem. Those two years were a grind.”

What is clear is that he’s put that time well in the rearview mirror. He leads the Blue Jays bullpen with a sterling 2.63 ERA and peripherals to only Osuna, and he’s been even better lately allowing just two runs in his last 17 outings.

Perhaps the biggest change Leone has made to turn things around has been the increased use of his cutter.

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The offering has been responsible for more of his strikeouts (24) than any other pitch with opponents hitting just .182 off of it.

Although it’s only recently become his go-to pitch, the cutter has actually been kicking around Leone’s arsenal since he was struggling as a starter at Clemson.

“I did some research and started watching videos and obviously look at as many clips of Mariano [Rivera] as I could, just to see how he threw it and how he held it,” he recalls. “And then I took that out to catch and some would be great and some would be horrible.”

Five years later, Leone has honed a weapon that was a bit player in his arsenal as he got started as a pro. It’s especially helped him limit the damage against left-handers who he’s struck out at a higher rate than right-handers and held to a .197 average. Even during Leone’s strong rookie year he gave up a nasty .292/.368/.432 line to lefty bats.

Because his improved cutter has allowed him to nullify bats from either side of the plate, John Gibbons has been able to trust him against any competition. That trust has resulted in Leone being parachuted into some tricky situations.

Only four pitchers have inherited more runners than the 25-year-old, three of them lefty specialists and one (Peter Moylan) who essentially occupies the same role from the right side. Leone doesn’t pitch to one batter, he’s expected to pitch all the way out of jams. So far he’s been pretty successful as only 10 of the 40 batters he’s taken on have found their way home.

“I don’t really feel that it makes anything different as opposed to starting a clean inning,” he said of coming in with men on base. “I still want to be aggressive I still want to attack hitters.”

For Leone the only additional variable is controlling the running game, but even then a continuity of approach beats fixating on the runner any day.

“You can’t let that affect how you pitch,” he said. “Because if you start pitching scared that’s when the momentum shifts and that’s when those runs will eventually score.”

Leone is entrenched in an interesting spot in the Blue Jays bullpen where he seems to occupy the role of troubleshooter, but he can never know when that trouble will come, or how long he’ll be needed to pitch.

“We’re all just sitting down waiting to see who Gibby is going to call,” he said of his predicament. “But it is nice to know you have a role. It’s nice to be versatile, too.”