This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson's Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
TORONTO -- The Blue Jays need a bullpen hero. Two or three wouldn’t hurt.
A group that was quietly a strength for this team through July has stumbled since. There’s some bad luck and bad timing involved here, given that a handful of key pieces are struggling at the same time, but there’s also a common theme here, and there’s nothing complicated about it. Toronto’s bullpen just isn’t throwing enough strikes.
Yimi García is done for the season, with right elbow surgery scheduled, while Chad Green and Erik Swanson -- both key pieces when the season opened -- are long gone. The Blue Jays need to find some more success stories internally on top of their big Trade Deadline additions.
Getting Braydon Fisher back in early September will help, of course, and Tommy Nance has quietly been rolling with a 0.86 ERA over 21 innings. Most importantly, Nance is filling up the zone and has walked just five batters over that span, and John Schneider continues to make one thing clear: If you want to pitch in big spots, throw strikes.
The big one: Louis Varland
This has been a head-scratcher since the Blue Jays acquired Varland from the Twins at the Trade Deadline. They paid a high price, too, in pitching prospect Kendry Rojas. Following another difficult outing in Friday’s loss to the Brewers, Schneider said they were “kind of pounding our head against the desk” trying to figure out how to turn Varland’s exceptional talent into the results he had in Minnesota.
“You look at everything. Is he tipping pitches? Is he not getting to the right spot [in his delivery]? We’ve looked at all of that stuff,” Schneider said. “He has the ability to and he’s done that before. The last thing you want when you acquire a guy is to go, ‘Why aren’t you doing what you did before you got here?’ It comes down to where he’s throwing his fastball. Hitters are geared to hit velocity. You have to put it in the right spot.”
In 12 appearances with the Blue Jays, Varland owns a 6.97 ERA and has walked five batters over 10 1/3 innings. Schneider knows that he needs to get Varland back into big spots by October for this team to be at its best, but he might use the coming weeks to build him back up.
“With Louis and with how his stuff is, there’s really not a bad spot to put him in, but I really want to get him in where he can have success,” Schneider said. “If that’s a little bit less leverage for now, great, but still really believe in his stuff.”
The adjustment game: Brendon Little
Little’s 3.09 ERA is still tidy, but there’s been a shift in how opposing hitters approach him. They’re laying off that excellent curveball and watching while it dives down and out of the zone for balls. The lefty has some of the best pure “stuff” in the organization, but now, he needs to counterpunch.
“His adjustment now is getting in the zone early, whether it’s a curveball or fastball, and staying in the zone,” Schneider said. “There are guys we face who you call a ‘four before three,' meaning can they throw three strikes before four balls, and you have a deliberate approach against that type of guy. He’s got to be in the zone and stay in the zone.”
At his best, Little has been downright dominant in 2025. The postseason offers the best hitters in the world with the most focused game plans you’ll see all year, though. Right now, teams are a step ahead of Little, so he’ll use the next month to close that gap.
The X-factor: Trey Yesavage
When Little was optioned in 2024, Schneider told him that he didn’t care about his ERA or results, only his strike-throwing. This brings us to Yesavage, the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect who has blown through the Minor Leagues this season and is waiting in Triple-A.
Yesavage has struck out 16 batters over 11 innings in Triple-A, but he’s also walked eight. Yes, an elite strikeout rate can take the sting off some walks, but the Blue Jays will still be focused squarely on his control.
It still comes back to a very simple question: Is Yesavage one of the Blue Jays’ 13 best pitchers, or 14 when September begins? If he’s in the zone, it’s an easy “yes.”