Pitching
In 1992, the Blue Jays team ERA was 20th in the league with a 3.91 mark. They were led by an effective top three in Jack Morris (4.04 ERA), Jimmy Key (3.53 ERA) and Juan Guzman (2.64 ERA). Todd Stottlemyre (4.50 ERA) was fine as a fourth starter but the last spot was where they lost ground.
Dave Sieb was not the dominant guy they had gotten used to seeing throughout the 1980’s and he was essentially replaced by a mix of David Wells, some other spot starters and eventually David Cone who was acquired in August. The starters had the ninth most strikeouts in the league with 638 and they kept opponents to a .249 batting average against.
This year they sit 22nd with a 4.17 ERA and are facing similar issues to what the ‘92 staff was facing. The back end of the Blue Jays rotation has had a variation of spot starters, bullpen games and ineffective hurlers starting while the top three in the rotation of José Berrios, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt have been mostly solid for large portions of the season. The starters have 434 strikeouts and have kept opponents to a .256 batting average against.
Meantime, the bullpens were built quite differently. The 1992 Blue Jays had a 3.46 ERA, led by the two-headed monster of setup man Duane Ward (1.95 ERA in 101.1 innings pitched and 12 saves) and closer Tom Henke (2.26 ERA in 55.2 innings pitched and 34 saves).
Outside of those two, and swing man David Wells, only one reliever racked up more than 50 innings pitched and that was 23-year-old Pat Hentgen who started two games as well. It really was an era where the starters were going deep into the game and the bullpen relied on mostly two arms. The Blue Jays bullpen threw just 403 innings across 162 games, with 316 strikeouts. They kept opposition hitters to a .245 batting average against.
This year, the Blue Jays bullpen has seen seven pitchers throw 20+ innings already, and have racked up 379 strikeouts in 351 innings pitched. They have a team bullpen ERA of 3.62 (10th in the league) and have a batting-average against of .216.
While Jeff Hoffman has been the main closer, finishing 34 of the 40 games he has appeared in, players like Yariel Yodriguez, Chad Green, Braydon Fisher, and Yimi Garcia have all also been that ‘last man on the mound.’ Not necessarily in save situations, but they aren’t beholden to going to the same two guys every time the eighth and ninth rolls around.
Second half finishes
The Blue Jays of ‘92 went 41-31 over the final 72 games of the regular season to finish 96-66, they played below .500 in August (14-16) but had a September to remember with an 18-9 record, and a 3-0 October before the playoffs began.
For the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays, making the Wild Card, at the very least, might only require them to win 90 games this season. Both Kansas City and Detroit were Wild Card teams last year with 86 wins.
The Blue Jays would “only” need to go 36-35 the rest of the way (after Tuesday’s win) to get to that 90 win threshold. It would certainly be much better to reach beyond that target, but after an impressive turnaround in the first-half of 2025, the Blue Jays have put themselves in the conversation for a similar finish to that of ‘92.