On paper, having only three starting pitchers in a starting rotation would be a recipe for disaster, but the Toronto Blue Jays are making it work. Last season, the Blue Jays also had a depleted rotation and were forced to use a four-man and even a three-man rotation, with bullpen days filling in the gaps.

It’s one reason the Blue Jays employ some of the most heavily used relievers in the sport this season; they’re not only being asked to pick up heavy workloads, but many of these relievers, like Mason Fluharty and Braydon Fisher, are opening games.

The Blue Jays have to be careful about not running their top relievers into the ground, but they’re also trying to win ball games. They’re already playing at a disadvantage when they announce it’s going to be a bullpen game, so winning those games is that much harder when there might be five, six or more pitchers coming out of the bullpen.

Credit to the Blue Jays, they’ve navigated through this stretch without many of the mainstays in their starting rotation. As Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer are close to returning, and Shane Bieber isn’t far behind, the Blue Jays will have two or even three starting pitchers coming back likely this week alone.

The days of Fisher or Fluharty plus a parade of relievers should be over soon, but it’s remarkable how the Blue Jays haven’t torpedoed these bullpen days.

A caveat here, we won’t count games where a starter had to exit due to injury (including games started by Cody Ponce, Max Scherzer, and Cease), or early exits by a starting pitcher (Eric Lauer on April 5 against the White Sox, for example) who had to hand things over to the bullpen early.

And although Spencer Miles is a pseudo starting pitcher at the moment, I’d still say he’s technically a reliever, more of a bulk pitcher who has started a couple of games.

Through 66 games, the Blue Jays have had 10 bullpen games, with a massive uptick in bullpen work since Cease’s recent stint on the injured list. Five of the last 12 games have been bullpen games for the Blue Jays, which is astronomical.

In those 10 bullpen games, the Blue Jays have a 6-4 record. What’s even more impressive is that the Blue Jays pitching staff has an ERA of 3.68 on bullpen days. That’s respectable for a club that’s merely trying to stay afloat until some of their starting rotation pieces rejoin the roster.

Conversely, the Blue Jays are 26-30 when they have a traditional starting pitcher on the mound. On traditional start days, Blue Jays pitchers have an ERA of 4.11. At first glance, you’d think that record should be better, as presumably the bullpen would be fresher on those regular starting pitcher days.

But the compounding effects of all those innings may have an adverse effect. Blue Jays starting pitchers are averaging only 4.6 innings per start, which is tied for the third-lowest mark in MLB. Toronto relievers are picking up 4.2 innings per game on average.

With stud relievers like Louis Varland, Fisher, and Fluharty, the Blue Jays are leaning into their strength, which is their top-end relief pitching. Despite Fisher and Fluharty bouncing back and forth from the bullpen to opening games, they’re still performing well, even though Fluharty’s 3.98 ERA doesn’t match his 2.30 expected ERA.

The bullpen games are a much smaller sample size at only 10 games versus 56, but it’s very interesting how the “all hands on deck” approach to those games yields better results from the pitching staff. It’s not unlike what the Blue Jays did in Game 4 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees, when eight Blue Jays relievers combined to allow only two earned runs and six hits in the series-clinching game.

The bullpen approach failed miserably a little over one week ago, when the Baltimore Orioles lit up Spencer Miles for six earned runs over three innings at Camden Yards back on May 31. But on the other end of the spectrum, the bullpen performed masterfully back on May 21 against the Yankees.

Fisher, Adam Macko, Miles, Tyler Rogers, and Jeff Hoffman combined to shut out the Bronx Bombers while giving up three hits combined. Miles did most of the heavy lifting in that game with 4.1 innings of scoreless relief, but it demonstrated the best-case scenario for a bullpen game.

That likely explains why the Blue Jays haven’t been too keen on either signing, trading for, or promoting another starting pitcher as Cease and Scherzer progressed through their rehab stints. The bullpen has been cruising, and although they’re overworked, they haven’t broken yet.

One can’t expect a team to sustain a .600 winning percentage on bullpen days, but working shorthanded hasn’t seemed to handicap the Blue Jays all that much.

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