The defending American League champions have had a difficult first few weeks. Their 10-14 record has them in fourth place in the AL East. The relief group is a big part of that, as the Jays rank 23rd with a 4.81 bullpen ERA. They\u2019ve blown seven leads, tied with the White Sox for third most in MLB (behind the A\u2019s and Nationals at eight apiece).<\/p>\n
The problems have extended to the ninth inning. Closer\u00a0Jeff Hoffman<\/a> has been charged with three blown saves, which is tied for the MLB high. That doesn\u2019t include Tuesday\u2019s rough outing against the Angels.<\/p>\n Hoffman entered with a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. After striking out Zach Neto<\/a>, he allowed four consecutive batters to reach. Skipper John Schneider turned to Louis Varland<\/a> with the bases loaded and a 4-2 lead. Varland promptly got\u00a0Nolan Schanuel<\/a> to bounce into a game-ending double play. That technically went down as a hold for Hoffman because he recorded an out and left the game with the lead, but it obviously wasn\u2019t what the Jays wanted from their closer.<\/p>\n After the game, Schneider was noncommittal on sticking with the righty in the ninth. \u201cWe\u2019ll reevaluate everything, talk with him, see how he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s going through it obviously a little bit,\u201d Schneider told reporters on Wednesday (links via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet<\/a> and Jared Greenspan of MLB.com<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019ll see (about his role).\u201d The skipper noted they\u2019d take advantage of Thursday\u2019s scheduled day off to discuss things with the pitcher.<\/p>\n Hoffman has made 12 appearances on the season. He has allowed at least one run in six of them. The 33-year-old righty has surrendered 11 runs (nine earned) over his first 10 2\/3 innings. Hoffman has given up 16 hits, walked six batters, and hit a pair on Tuesday. He has successfully locked down a trio of saves.<\/p>\n The bottom line results have been terrible, but Hoffman ranks near the top of the league in strikeouts. He has fanned 24 of 57 opponents, a monster 42.1% clip. Among pitchers with at least 10 innings, only Mason Miller<\/a> has a superior strikeout rate. Hoffman\u2019s 21.2% swinging strike percentage is also second behind Miller\u2019s unbelievable 30.3% mark. All four of Hoffman\u2019s pitches have missed bats and his velocity is at usual levels.<\/p>\n There\u2019s clearly some amount of bad luck in Hoffman\u2019s early results. Opponents have hit above .600 when they\u2019ve put the ball in play. If he were coming off a dominant 2025 season, the Jays would surely give him more rope to allow the batted ball variance to even out.<\/p>\n However, his first year in Toronto was up and down. Hoffman recorded 33 saves but ranked second among relievers with 15 home runs allowed. He had a 4.37 earned run average across 68 regular season innings. Hoffman was excellent for the majority of the postseason until allowing the famous Miguel Rojas<\/a> home run in the ninth inning of World Series Game 7 \u2014 his only homer and blown save of the playoffs.<\/p>\n If the Jays move Hoffman out of the ninth, Varland would be the obvious choice to replace him as the closer. Last year\u2019s deadline pickup has begun his \u201926 campaign without allowing an earned run through 13 innings. He has fanned 19 hitters against three walks. Varland has been an excellent setup man but has no closing experience. Tuesday\u2019s one-pitch outing was the first save of his MLB career.<\/p>\n Varland has clearly outperformed Hoffman through a few weeks, but naming him the closer would limit Schneider\u2019s flexibility to use him earlier in games. No Toronto pitcher has entered in higher-leverage situations on average than Varland, as the biggest at-bats aren\u2019t always in the ninth inning. Hoffman is third in that regard, also behind the already optioned Brendon Little<\/a>. The Jays also have Tyler Rogers<\/a> and\u00a0Braydon Fisher<\/a> in key late-game roles.<\/p>\n How should the Jays proceed?<\/p>\n \t\t\tHow should the Blue Jays approach the ninth inning?<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTotal votes: 854\n\t\t<\/p>\n Thank you for voting!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending American League champions have had a difficult first few weeks. Their 10-14 record has them in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,14578,32617,82],"class_list":["post-625313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jeff-hoffman","tag-louie-varland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}