{"id":279915,"date":"2026-04-22T07:36:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279915\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:36:26","slug":"jeff-hoffmans-response-absolutely-huge-for-blue-jays-who-need-him-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279915\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Hoffman\u2019s response \u2018absolutely huge\u2019 for Blue Jays, who need him to succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the sky isn\u2019t falling for the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> after all.<\/p>\n

With the team mired in a tough stretch that has included injuries, poor play, a mystery illness, and now a broken plane, the Blue Jays have put together two of their most complete performances of the season in back-to-back days as they inch closer to the .500 mark before the end of April.<\/p>\n

One of those games included an eight-run offensive explosion<\/a> to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> on Sunday, with the other coming on Monday night to begin a series with the Los Angeles Angels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether it was the dominant starting pitching, timely hitting, contributions from off the bench, or an lights-out showing from the bullpen, the scrappy 5-2 victory<\/a> over the Angels was much more reminiscent of the Blue Jays from last season as this year\u2019s edition of the team searches for their identity.<\/p>\n

Maybe the most welcome sign from Monday\u2019s win was the bounce-back performance of Jeff Hoffman<\/a>, who struck out three batters and locked down the save for just Toronto\u2019s fifth win in the month of April.<\/p>\n

Hoffman\u2019s season has not gotten off to a good start with the veteran reliever blowing three of his six save opportunities and currently holding a 6.97 earned run average in just 10 1\/3 innings pitched. <\/p>\n

Things came to a head this weekend in the desert when Hoffman was summoned from the bullpen in the eighth inning of a tied ballgame. He would give up a pair of singles to the bottom of the Diamondbacks lineup and walk Ketel Marte<\/a> to load the bases, before serving up a grand slam to Corbin Carroll<\/a> to blow the game wide open \u2013 all before recording a single out.<\/p>\n

After the game, manager John Schneider came to the defence<\/a> of Hoffman, reaffirming his \u201ctrust and confidence\u201d in his closer despite the poor results of late, and of course, his blown save in Game 7 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Schneider was once again given the opportunity to show his faith in Hoffman as the team\u2019s closer, and was repaid with a scoreless ninth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re kind of at the point where – and I saw John\u2019s quotes about the whole situation – that\u2019s the team\u2019s best option right now,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Buster Olney said on TSN1050\u2019s First Up Tuesday morning. \u201cHe may not necessarily be great at that job, but given that construct of who is in the bullpen, the way the team is, they need Jeff Hoffman<\/a> to be good.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so what does John Schneider do? He backs his guy. Because the bottom line is there is not a lot of options out there, and so the formula that they had last night is one that they\u2019re going to have to grind away with here going forward as they wait for some of these injured players to come back. For Jeff, I\u2019m sure, an old pro, getting backed by his manager, versus a \u2018Well, we\u2019re going to consider our options\u2019 type of answer\u2026 you know, he responds.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Olney eludes to, Hoffman is undoubtedly a very important piece of the puzzle for the Blue Jays this season.<\/p>\n

He locked down 33 saves for the Blue Jays last year heading into October, where he pitched to a 1.46 ERA with 18 strikeouts over 12 1\/3 innings, including seven clean appearances from Game 1 of the American League Championship Series to Game 6 of the World Series. He cemented himself as one of Toronto\u2019s most reliable arms before Miguel Rojas<\/a>\u2019 home run in the top of ninth inning in Game 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of a reliever giving up a big home run in October and then being broken the following year is a clich\u00e9,\u201d added Olney. \u201cIt was absolutely huge for him that he was able to respond at a time when they need him to. When you look at the way the team is built, they need him to succeed, which is why John is continually giving him the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would certainly be other managers, other teams where they would bail on a guy in his situation after giving up such a big home run in the World Series. But the Blue Jays haven\u2019t, and last night Jeff responded. He looked great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto (9-13) wraps up a lengthy road trip with two more games in Anaheim against the Angels, before returning home for a pair of series against the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> and Boston Red Sox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Patrick Corbin<\/a> will get the ball opposite Jack Kochanowicz<\/a> as the Blue Jays go for their first series victory since the opening week of the season.<\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps the sky isn\u2019t falling for the Toronto Blue Jays after all. With the team mired in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,6013,120534,120535],"class_list":{"0":"post-279915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-apple-news","12":"tag-jeff-hoffman-sports-baseball-player-player-statscom-709602","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays-sports-baseball-team-team-statscom-238"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}