Blue Jays lack of pitching depth could be problematic moving forward

The Toronto Blue Jays lack of pitching depth and inability to pitch late into ball games could be problematic moving forward.

The Blue Jays were outscored 20-1 in their recent sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Twins. The lack of pitching depth was exploited while the Jays bats decided to take the series off completely.

Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez both got off to strong starts to begin the season, however, both hurlers have struggled of late. You never know what you are going to get from rookie Trent Thornton on any given outing and Clay Buchholz looks to be a shell of his former 2018 self thus far.

The rotation is down an arm with whispers that Clayton Richard may be activated from the injured list to take the fifth spot in the rotation. Richard has yet to pitch to make his Blue Jays debut since being acquired from the Padres in the offseason for Connor Panas. The Jays have already utilized seven different starters to begin games and we are only 37 games in.

Thomas Pannone who was working out of the bullpen was just demoted to Buffalo while the skipper prefers Sam Gaviglio as the long man out of the pen. The Matt Shoemaker season-ending injury definitely crippled the Jays rotation eliminating a valuable depth arm from the picture.

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The likes of Sean Reid-Foley and Jacob Waguespack have each had their own struggles in Triple-A this season. Reid-Foley is sporting an inflated 8.64 earned run average in 25 innings of work while Waguespack owns a 5.60 earned run average in 35.1 innings. Waguespack has surrendered 14 runs in his last three starts combined.

The likes of Julian Merryweather, Jon Harris, and T.J. Zeuch are all shelved with an assortment of ailments and have yet to make their 2019 debut.

Nate Pearson was promoted to Double-A recently and is a legitimate front of the rotation talent although his big league timeline is likely the summer of 2020.

It is hard to fathom the Jays trading one or both of Stroman and Sanchez unless they get a haul of near MLB ready arms to fill the void. It is hard to envision how Charlie Montoyo and company are even going to find pitchers to fill out the rotation let alone trading from it.

The Blue Jays are desperately lacking pitching depth and arms that can effectively eat innings at the major league level. Where is R.A. Dickey when you need him?