3 Blue Jays starts that feel sustainable, 2 that feel like fool’s gold

Fool’s Gold – Andrés Giménez’s power surge

As the cleanup hitter in the Toronto line up, Giménez’s slugged his way into the hearts of Blue Jays fans everywhere by hitting three home runs through Toronto's first seven games. Giménez entered the year with less than 50 career home runs, and he didn't hit his third home run last year until May 19. However, we shouldn’t expect Giménez to challenge for Marcus Semien’s record for home runs by a second baseman.

Giménez is making solid contact on 22.7% of the balls he's hit, which is over four times his career average of 5.5%. He’s also hitting fly balls at a rate of 40.9%, which would be his career high by a large margin. FanGraphs projects Giménez to go yard 15 times this year, which would be two off the career-high he set in 2022. That feels much more attainable than his current pace of 69 home runs.

Sustainable – Jeff Homan shutting the door

It took Jeff Hoffman 11 years and stops in four other markets before he recorded a save with the team that originally drafted him. Hoffman pitched a clean 1-2-3 inning against the Orioles on March 30 to record his first save of the season — and his first in a Toronto uniform after the Blue Jays drafted him in 2014.

Hoffman really came into his own as a backend reliever with the Cincinnati Reds in 2022 before putting together two domintant seasons with the Phillies in 2023 and '24. He totaled a 184 ERA+ in those two seasons across 118 2/3 innings with 158 strikeouts.

Hoffman hasn’t lost a step since returning north of the border. He's appeared in four games with Toronto and has recorded 5 strikeouts and three saves. His 11.25 K/9 rate is just above the total that FanGraphs projected (11.09).

He’s also got a 45.5% whiff rate on his splint finger pitch, which is up from his 33.2% from last year.