Blue Jays in desperate need of a rotation shake-up

The Toronto Blue Jays require a rotation shake-up and they need it soon, the entire starting staff with the exception of J.A. Happ could all warrant pitching in Buffalo if you looked solely on their individual stats.

J.A. Happ has been the rotations best starter and he even sports an earned run average north of four. The southpaw is 5-3 with a 4.15 ERA while fanning 66 in 52 innings of work. Happ has six outings with eight or more strikeouts including two starts where he hit double digits this season.

After Happ, the rotation falters as Aaron Sanchez has struggled of late looking ineffective at best and failing to pitch deep into games. The 25-year old is 2-4 with a 4.47 earned run average while walking a career-high 5.2 batters per nine innings. Sanchez has only pitched past the sixth inning once this season his last three starts have lasted 4, 5 and 3.2 innings respectively.

Marcus Stroman is on the DL after a disastrous start and part of me thinks it was just easier on his to send him to the disabled list than bruise his ego by demoting him which he deserved to be. The Jays summarized the time away from the team as a mental and physical break so definitely not your typical verbiage when discussing a players injury.

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Stroman did miss much of spring training with shoulder inflammation and suffered through seven starts looking hardly like the pitcher from last season. When he was shelved he had a 7.71 earned run average surrendering 32 runs in 37.1 innings of work.

The Jaimie Garcia experiment has failed miserably thus far, after inking the veteran hurler to a 1 year/ $10 million dollar pact. Garcia sports a 6.28 earned run average and has been victimized by eight home runs in his first eight starts. Garcia appears the likely candidate to be removed from the rotation if his struggles persist.

Marco Estrada hasn’t been much better than Garcia struggling to keep hitters off balance. Estrada has been hurt by the gopher ball once again offering up 10 round trippers and a 5.32 earned run average in eight starts.

Even the sixth man in the rotation has not lived up to expectations as it appears Joe Biagini is better suited for the bullpen. Big Joe has a 7.98 earned run average in three starts and hopefully, the Jays brain trust comes to their senses sooner than later.

Next: Blue Jays need to give Sean Reid-Foley a shot

The six starters have a combined 5.98 earned run average and something needs to be done before it is too late. The likes of Sean Reid-Foley and Jordan Romano are all worthy of a promotion rather than trotting the same ineffective hurlers out every fifth day. The Blue Jays season and chance at the postseason depends upon it.