Take A Bow Blue Jays Bullpen

Sep 29, 2013; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Darren Oliver (38) tips his hat to the fans after striking out Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria (not pictured) in the seventh inning at Rogers Centre. Tampa defeated Toronto 7-6. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY SportsIf the Toronto Blue Jays are in contention next season one of the reasons they’ll have trouble making a big enough push to get into the playoffs is because all their relievers arms may be long gone by the time were late into the season.

The Blue Jays bullpen threw 552.2 innings this season! With the rotation the Jays put together in the offseason you would have thought the bullpen wouldn’t have thrown that many innings if the Jays played all the way into the World Series.

Despite being overworked like an animal, the Jays bullpen finished with a 3.37 ERA and held hitters to a 235 batting average. They gave up just 236 runs all season and struck out 510 hitters while only walking 198.

A lot of people thought the Jays bullpen would be the weakest part of the team because if you’re not a Jays fan the only recognizable name is Darren Oliver. But the Jays have shown you don’t need recognizable names coming out of your bullpen for it to be good.

Or that you don’t need to invest a lot of money in your bullpen for it to be good.

The bullpen was by far the most consistent and dominant part of the team this season.

If you think the Blue Jays 74-88 record is disappointing now imagine how bad their record would be with an average bullpen.

It feels like they would have had 52 wins at best without it.

Everyone talks about the Jays not taking advantage of having Bautista and Encarnacion in their prime but the Jays may never have a bullpen this good again, Lol as corny as that sounds as a reason to take advantage of a competitive window.

With the amount of depth the Jays have in their bullpen it’s the one part of the team you can already feel safe in saying will be good in 2014.

The Jays bullpen was just so ridiculously good this year when you consider how much they had to pitch. It doesn’t get talked about enough but they really kept the Jays from being a million games under 500.

And for that every Jays fan should be appreciative.

Take a bow bullpen you earned it.