The Toronto Blue Jays have just one left-hander in the big league bullpen in Mason Fluharty. The Jays lost Joe Mantiply due to injury in mid-May and recently optioned Adam Macko to the minor leagues when the club needed a spot for Dylan Cease on the active roster.

The other left-hander who featured on the Jays roster to begin the season was Brendon Little, who has been downright dominant at times when things are trending in the right direction. Unfortunately, that trend has been going the wrong way dating back to the back part of last season, and the Jays optioned Little to Buffalo earlier this season after allowing three home runs and ten earned runs through five outings.

This was back on April 5th, and since then, Little has appeared in 24 games for the Bisons and has found some improved results with the odd hiccup mixed in.

Across 23.1 innings of relief, Little has allowed six earned runs and 15 hits to the tune of a 2.31 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP. This also includes just one home run against and one hit-batter, while Little has also punched out 32 batters to the tune of a 12.3 K/9. Little hasn’t allowed an earned run since a rough outing against Syracuse on May 21st (four earned runs against) and has allowed just three hits through 4.2 innings in June.

With these improved results, why is Little still toiling away in Buffalo? The walks.

Despite the limited runs against the and the stellar 5.9 H/9, Little has struggled to keep the free passes contained. They haven’t come back to haunt him just yet, but there is a reason WHIP is sitting at the 1.4 range versus a more comfortable 1.0-1.2.

Through his 23.1 innings in Buffalo, Little has allowed 19 walks, which translates into a 7.3 BB/9. This is similar to the 7.4 BB/9 he put up through the smaller sample size of his MLB outings earlier this season, and it’s even higher than the 5.9 BB/9 he posted in 2025, where he started the season strong but started to fall off as the season wore on.

The positive news is that Little is starting to trend in the right direction when it comes to the free passes, as he’s allowed just two walks since the calendar flipped to June (and they both came in one outing) and hasn’t walked a batter through his last three outings. The problem for Little is that when he can’t find the zone, he walks multiple batters per outing, and these outings tend to go sideways on the left-hander. His rough outing in Syracuse was the result of three walks and one hit, and he also hit a batter.

It all relates to the consistency aspect of his outings, where sometimes Little is a strikeout artist and things are clicking, and then things go sideways, where he can’t find the strike zone and the runs come trickling in.

If Little can continue to find the zone and limit the walks through June, he likely puts himself on the Jays’ radar towards the end of the month.

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