Has the Blue Jays bullpen finally settled down?

It was widely documented how bad the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen was in August. To quickly recap from August 1 through September 3, the Blue Jays bullpen had an ERA of 4.98. In 103 innings pitched they allowed 65 runs (57 earned runs), 11 home runs a 4.34 FIP, and allowed a .312 BABIP.

Those were worrisome numbers for a team that made the bullpen their biggest priority at the trade deadline. They acquired two relievers in Seranthony Dominguez and Louis Varland to be middle-to-late inning options. They also acquired a starter in Shane Bieber to come into their rotation which in theory should have let one of their five arms slide into a swing-man / long relief role to add even more depth to the bullpen.

Has the Blue Jays bullpen finally settled down?

But Dominguez and Varland struggled in their first couple of outings and the Blue Jays deflated that depth by using six guys in the rotation for a brief time. The results weren't great and the Blue Jays bullpen was becoming the lightning rod for a lot of the fans ire. Interestingly enough the Blue Jays 122 runs allowed in the month of August was less than they allowed in June and July, the problem was they were giving up runs at inopportune times and blowing late leads.

Since the end of their series in Cincinnati however, it appears the bullpen is back on track. Over the last seven games the Blue Jays pitching has a whole has been quite efficient allowing just 15 runs in those seven games, giving up more than three runs in just one of those contests.

The bullpen has been responsible for covering 19.2 innings over those seven games and they have an ERA of just 0.92. They've given up just two earned runs, while striking out 19 batters and allowing only seven hits. Walks are still an issue as they've allowed 12 free passes in those seven contests, but they haven't let that affect them as much as they had in August when their walk rate was 5.16.

The BABIP over the last seven games is down to .143 and the batting average against is sitting at .113, while their strikeout percentage is an immaculate 25.3%. This was the kind of swing and miss stuff the Blue Jays were hoping to get out of Varland and Dominguez when they brought them in.

The most gutsy performance from the pen may have come on Tuesday in the series opener against the Astros. After Shane Bieber went 5.2 innings and left with the Blue Jays trailing 3-0, the bullpen was lights out to keep the team in the game until the bats woke up late. Yariel Rodriguez, Brendon Little, Tommy Nance, Dominguez and Jeff Hoffman combined for 4.1 innings of work, and allowing just two hits and no runs.

Even in the previous series in which they lost two games to the Yankees in New York, the bullpen did it's job, giving up just one run during the three games while the Yankees just managed to outscore Toronto 7-4 over the final two contests after Toronto handled them 7-1 in the opener.

On Friday night, in the series opener against Baltimore, the Blue Jays paraded five pitchers out of the pen after Chris Bassitt removed himself for apparent back tightness after five innings. Ryan Borucki, Braydon Fisher, Varland, Little, and Rodriguez gave up just one hit, with four strikeouts over the final four innings of work.

Yes, one week is a small sample size, but the later into the season we get the more the focus will be on the very minute details and right now, it looks like the bullpen is back to where it needs to be.