Blue Jays manager hasn’t lost any faith in Jeff Hoffman as Toronto’s closer just yet

This past Saturday, the Toronto Blue Jays were the unfortunate recipients of another meltdown from their closer Jeff Hoffman. With a single, single, walk and grand slam in consecutive fashion without recording an out, Hoffman managed to quickly turn a close 2-2 affair into a 6-2 laugher in favour of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

That disastrous outing by the Blue Jays closer was the second straight debacle that he had put together. In the game on April 14 against the Milwaukee Brewers, Hoffman blew the save but the team managed to pick him up and sealed the victory in extra innings. This time around, it became an unrecoverable mess.

Jeff Hoffman still has a hold on Toronto’s closer with Schneider in his corner

However, despite all of that, Blue Jays manager John Schneider surprisingly hasn’t lost faith in Hoffman in remaining as the closer for Toronto going forward, as per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com.

“I know there may be people who don’t want to hear this, but I’ve got a lot of trust and confidence in Jeff Hoffman … If there’s a situation to close out a game, I’ll take Jeff Hoffman,” Schneider said with absolute reassurance.

The Blue Jays manager may have a point, since earlier this season, the 33-year-old left hander was dominant, posting a stellar 2.35 ERA along with a 17 strikeouts in just 7.2 innings of work in his first eight appearances of 2026. However, Hoffman did hint already at potential disaster when he managed to still blow two of the four save opportunities that was presented to him despite the impressive start. That ultimately has come to fruition in his recent games.

This isn’t anything new for Hoffman and the Blue Jays as they experienced this together throughout the 2025 MLB season. With his Jekyll and Hyde performances, he would look unhittable at certain times, while being teed up for batting practice in other instances. As a result, Hoffman converted 33 saves while compiling a 4.37 ERA with 84 strikeouts in 68 innings pitched last year. However, at the same time, he also blew seven saves and gave up 15 home runs to rank second-last in the league among relievers.

One thing though that has been different is the fact that he didn’t enter his phase of inconsistency in 2025 until the month of May had started. This season, Hoffman is already experiencing his troubles only halfway through April. So how much longer of a leash he will have will be up for debate, but for now, he has the vote of confidence of his manager to give him all the opportunity to work his way out of his funk.

As for the Blue Jays, with wins being difficult to come by in recent weeks making every little lead important, they have to hope that Hoffman does indeed right the ship soon. Otherwise, they could sink to depths that they won’t be able to overcome later on despite being this early in the season.

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