TORONTO -- The Blue Jays’ bullpen is still moving as one.
After a head-scratching collective funk in August, Toronto’s relievers are now finding their way back to form at a good time and almost all at once. They took another huge step forward on Friday night, helping the Blue Jays to a 6-1 win over the Orioles at Rogers Centre.
Don’t be fooled by the final score. This was a win built on patience and pitching. It wasn’t a one-man shutout, but a true group effort, as five relievers combined to hold a powerful Baltimore lineup to just one hit and no runs through four innings to maintain Toronto’s lead in the AL East and build some separation on the Tigers for the best record in the league.
The road back to normalcy is built on patience and an open mind, one outing at a time.
“It's hard to be a reliever,” said manager John Schneider. “There's ups and downs, right? What I loved about the way they went about it, [the relievers] and the coaching staff … is they're diving into ways to get better and tweaking the way that they prepare a little bit. So kind of just being open to what we're not doing well, and how we can get better at it and not losing confidence at the same time.
“I give a lot of credit to the guys. You have to try to keep putting them in good spots and show confidence in them.”
All of it was crisp in this win, which didn’t really break open until the bottom of the eighth.
The pitching clinic started with Chris Bassitt and continued through the night. After Kevin Gausman’s shutout on Thursday, every arm in the ‘pen was rested for the opener against the O’s. That gave Schneider the flexibility to find those favorable pockets and give Bassitt -- who exited at 75 pitches through five frames -- a timely shorter outing.
“We're a really good pitching team because of the way that we communicate and the way that we kind of go about our business,” said Bassitt. “Gausy kind of gave me the runway a little bit just because he went nine innings [yesterday]. I wasn't feeling great. So it's like, why push it at that moment knowing I'm probably gonna be on normal rest?”
Bassitt attributed his early exit to the late stages of the season rather than any specific ailment. Thus began a sequence of well-timed moves and a whole lot of “picking each other up.”
In the sixth inning, Braydon Fisher bailed out Ryan Borucki, who walked two lefty batters with a strikeout sandwiched in. Then, when Fisher walked the leadoff batter in the seventh, it was Louis Varland’s turn to help his teammate with a 1-6-3 double play that had the right-hander fired up as he pointed to Andrés Giménez and strutted around the mound. Brendon Little and Yariel Rodríguez took the Blue Jays home from there, looking more like the lights-out relievers they’ve been for most of the season.
Each of those performances helped keep the game in place long enough for the offense to break through. That’s exactly what the Blue Jays (85-62) expect to get from their trusted arms moving forward.
“I’m really confident in our bullpen,” said Bassitt. “I know we've kind of preached it multiple times. We’ve just got to give them enough rest. If we give them enough rest, they're really, really good.”
They’ve been better in September.
After posting a 4.76 ERA in August -- the seventh-worst mark in the Majors during that span -- the Blue Jays’ bullpen has found some normalcy again in September, lowering its collective ERA to 3.54 and its home runs per nine from 0.99 to 0.64.
This is still a work in progress, though, especially considering the lack of stability the Blue Jays have seen from the closer role. They didn’t need Jeff Hoffman, thanks to a three-run bottom of the eighth, but that question mark remains after another home run allowed in a 3-2 loss on Wednesday against the Astros.
There’s one thing you can count on: This team will keep its trust in the guys. It’s a big part of what’s helped them out of the funk as a unit.
“When you're running through guys like that, they gotta do their part,” said Schneider. “And if someone doesn't, you gotta pick them up. … I'm always going to have confidence in them when they come in, but they've done a lot of work behind the scenes that I think has helped them turn the corner.”