Blue Jays bullpen emerging as strength with flexible, diverse approach

TORONTO — There’s an air of increasing entropy to the Blue Jays bullpen this year.

Relief pitching has surged as one of the season’s few pleasant surprises, and that’s due in large part to the variety of arms and styles the team’s bullpen currently carries.

“Right now, we’re not [just] guys with higher velocities,” said lefty reliever Tim Mayza. “We have all kinds – different kinds – of pitchers. It’s kind of worked in our benefit.”

Sporting a 19-to-33 age range, from homegrown products to veteran journeymen and no well-defined roles other than closer Ken Giles, Toronto’s group of misfit arms has quickly earned the spotlight on a team that has seen injuries poke holes in its starting rotation and slumping bats take away any hope of run support even when starters deliver strong outings.

“You have that many guys, especially how many we have in our ‘pen, but they’re all awesome, they come to work, they get along and that really helps,” said bullpen coach Matt Buschmann. “And then you have some veteran guys at the backend of the bullpen and they just go about their work the right way and it makes it really easy.”

The Blue Jays have relied heavily on that successful mesh.

Toronto’s bullpen has the sixth-largest inning workload in MLB (fifth in the American League) and their 3.34 ERA is the third-best mark in the majors. While most teams choose to carry eight or nine relievers, the Blue Jays currently have 10, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, according to manager Charlie Montoyo.

“I think we’re staying the way we are right now with three guys on the bench,” Montoyo said Sunday when asked if he would consider carrying fewer relievers and add bench players prior to a two-game National League series against the San Francisco Giants.

After a series of injuries reduced the Blue Jays rotation to just three starters and forced the team to have an opener day last week before acquiring journeyman Edwin Jackson in a pinch, the decision seems justifiable.

A combined starters’ ERA of 4.39 also suggests the Blue Jays can’t risk messing with the one component that’s keeping them ashore.

Early All-Star candidate Sam Gaviglio has pitched 27.2 innings this season, the second-highest mark by a reliever in MLB. The 28-year-old, who split time between triple-A Buffalo and the majors as a starter last year, hit the ground running out of the bullpen, benefitting from a sinker-slider combination for a 1.95 ERA and 0.651 WHIP.

The same can be said for Joe Biagini, who pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning in Sunday’s loss against the Chicago White Sox after Aaron Sanchez surrendered five runs in the fourth and quickly saw a 1-0 lead turn into a 5-1 deficit.

Biagini’s 3.00 ERA and 0.889 WHIP through 18 innings suggest that his permanent move to the bullpen has helped him finally find his footing as a full-time major-leaguer.

“I think he understands what he needs to do, his role and how to prepare every day. And knowing that’s not going to change is a good mental break,” said Buschmann. “I know he and Pete [Walker, pitching coach] worked together to get him into a standard routine and he’s really bought in, it’s been awesome to see.”

Mayza faced four batters and struck out two in a scoreless eighth inning on Sunday. The homegrown left-hander has sported a 3.71 ERA and a ratio of 11.65 strikeouts per nine innings as one of just four relievers in MLB to appear in 21 games or more this season.

More importantly, Mayza has held left-handed hitters to a .176 batting average, a commodity the Blue Jays haven’t seen consistently in their bullpen since Aaron Loup’s best years from 2012 to 2014.

“I don’t think I’m really fooling anybody. I don’t really have five pitches where I [can] fool somebody,” said Mayza, who mainly throws a combination of two-seam fastballs and sliders, occasionally mixing in a four-seamer. “I kind of rely on that slider to be my pitch to lefties. But it’s about working my strengths [instead of] what may work versus that hitter in particular.”

More than simply retiring lefties, though, Mayza’s allowed just a .207 average against right-handers, which makes him a solid option for complete innings. Two of his three outs on Sunday were lefty-on-righty matchups.

Giles has done a good job in anchoring his relievers, putting up career numbers with a 1.56 ERA and 13.5 strikeouts per nine and nine saves, including his 100th career save against the White Sox last Friday.

“We have a group of guys that we trust to get us to Giles,” said Buschmann.

Fittingly, any guy can be called at any moment, as the Blue Jays bullpen hasn’t exactly counted on specific pitchers in specific moments, but have rather shown a loose leverage-assessment approach.

Veterans like Mayza, Biagini, Gaviglio and Giles tend to see more high-leverage situations, whereas young pitchers like Thomas Pannone and Elvis Luciano are more likely to get the call in less crucial moments of the game.

“That’s a great thing for Pete and Charlie to talk over, and they have some guys they can trust in leverage situations later in the game, so I think it helps,” Buschmann said. “It just comes down to having veteran guys who are ready to pitch and just go out there and do the job.”

These veteran guys, however, will most likely be gone by the trade deadline – much like last year, when the Jays got rid of Loup, Seunghwan Oh and John Axford.

In the eye of the rebuilding hurricane, with a 16-24 record and a -34 run-differential to show for it, this successful experiment is bound to get dismantled.

Photo source: Toronto Blue Jays (Twitter)