Less than a week into his major-league career, Canadian Adam Macko is already proving he can help the Toronto Blue Jays’ heavily-used, thinned-out bullpen — which enters Friday having logged the fourth-most innings (210) in baseball this season.

In addition to being without Yimi García, who opened the 2026 campaign on the injured list while recovering from off-season elbow surgery, this team has also seen both Tommy Nance and Joe Mantiply hit the IL in the last week, necessitating a pair of Triple-A call-ups, first Macko and then Chase Lee.

For Macko, there wasn’t any time for a soft landing spot. It was straight into the fire for the Alberta native — originally born in Slovakia, before his family later moved to Canada — whose first three big-league appearances all came under the bright lights of Yankee Stadium this week. And he didn’t balk at the high-pressure moment.

The 25-year-old lefty — the lone remaining piece from the 2022 Teoscar Hernández-Erik Swanson trade — retired nine of the 11 Yankees batters he faced across three scoreless innings, only allowing a pair of hits and zero walks while striking out three. His most recent outing, part of Thursday’s perfectly executed bullpen game, was arguably his most impressive yet.

Following opener Braydon Fisher out of the ‘pen, Macko was called upon in the second inning to face a pocket that included four left-handed batters (Spencer Jones, Ryan McMahon, J.C. Escarra and Ben Rice) and one right-handed batter (Anthony Volpe), and he carved through them all except for McMahon’s two-out double.

In the end, all it required was 20 pitches (13 strikes) from Macko, who punched out Rice on an 86-m.p.h. slider for a called strike three (a pitch that likely would’ve been overturned to a ball had it been challenged), before handing things over to Spencer Miles for bulk-inning duties — starting with Aaron Judge, who grounded out to end the third, as part of a 1-for-15 skid across the four-game series.

Say what you will about new Yankee Stadium. It certainly isn’t anywhere near as daunting for opposing players compared to the original. However, there’s still no greater challenge for a rookie pitcher than making your MLB debut in the Bronx. Let alone your first three big-league appearances.

Macko, securing his first-career win in the majors on Thursday, proved he can handle himself on one of the sport’s biggest stages. Granted, we’re dealing with a tiny sample size. But there’s plenty to like about the young southpaw’s profile, especially the former starter’s arsenal, headlined by his mid-90s four-seamer and mid-80s slider, along with a knuckle curve and a changeup.

With Mantiply on the shelf and Brendon Little still working through things in Buffalo, the door is wide open for Macko to position himself alongside Mason Fluharty as the second lefty reliever in the Blue Jays’ bullpen moving forward. He has the stuff to pitch in medium-to-high leverage situations, and after proving precisely that versus New York, it shows he has the confidence and poise to back it up, too.

Now that the club has successfully made it through another one of these bullpen games, they should be able to rest a bit easier with co-aces Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease starting two of the three upcoming games against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Receiving much-needed length from the starting rotation shouldn’t be a concern in either of those contests.

Between Gausman and Cease’s starts, though, will be Patrick Corbin’s next outing. Since the veteran lefty has completed fewer than five innings in each of his last two starts, paired with the Pirates’ lineup featuring a trio of lefties (Brandon Lowe, Oneil Cruz and former Blue Jay Spencer Horwitz), Macko may need to play an important role again this weekend.

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