For much of this season, one of the constant bright spots for the Toronto Blue Jays has been their bullpen, which, due to a struggling offence, has already faced several high-pressure situations just over a month into the 2025 campaign.

In most cases, the ‘pen has been up for the challenge and has reached the finish line without fumbling the ball at the one-yard line. But even the most lockdown relief corps are prone to a dip in performance when they’ve had to carry the freight for an extended period, and that’s precisely what has begun to occur for this group lately.

The cracks are starting to show for an overused relief unit that surrendered six runs on nine hits — including two home runs — and 10 walks during the three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians last weekend. Prior to that, they ranked second across the majors in strikeout-to-walk rate difference (19.3 per cent K-BB%) and were tied for eighth in fWAR (1.3), serving as one of the premier staffs in the sport.

However, they’ve also been among the hardest-working ones, making an eventual performance decline — which is now seemingly upon us — inevitable.

Entering Tuesday’s series opener versus the Los Angeles Angels, Blue Jays relievers have logged 129 total innings in 2025, placing them 10th in the majors. But nearly half of that workload has been consumed by the club’s four most-used relievers — closer Jeff Hoffman, Yimi García, Chad Green and Brendon Little, who’ve combined for 61.2 innings thus far.

As a result, all four are currently on pace to blow past their previous career highs in either relief appearances and innings pitched, or both in some cases. Little, in particular, has been called upon more than any other arm in Toronto’s bullpen and is tied with Washington’s Jose A. Ferrer and Los Angeles’ Alex Vesia for the most appearances among left-handers.

Consider this: the Blue Jays are one of eight teams in baseball who’ve had at least three relievers make 15 or more relief appearances this season. The others include the surprisingly competitive Athletics, Brewers, Dodgers, Guardians, Padres, Phillies and Twins.

Since entering Major League Baseball in 1977, Toronto has never had any reliever make more appearances in a single season than Adam Cimber’s 77 during the 2022 campaign. At this rate, though, there’s a chance they could have two pitchers reach or surpass that mark in ’25.

But this problem isn’t solely about appearances or innings pitched. It’s deeper than it. Not all workloads are created equally. Some of them feature minimal amounts of stress, while others consist of far more.

While the offence has struggled to hit for power thus far, they were at least keeping their heads above water by manufacturing runs effectively through the first few weeks of the season. That minimized the number of high-stress outings on the ‘pen, whose 27 innings in high and medium-leverage situations from Opening Day to Apr. 15 sat around the middle of the pack.

Since then, run support has largely dried up from the Blue Jays’ lineup, which has scored at least six runs just once over their previous 16 games heading into this week’s west-coast road trip. In turn, the club’s relievers have faced an increased amount of medium-to-high-leverage situations, totalling 30.1 innings since Apr. 16 — ninth-most in the majors during this span.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the back-end group of Hoffman, García, Green and Little have assumed most of that workload. In fact, they’ve been responsible for nearly two-thirds of it. So, given that context, it shouldn’t be entirely surprising that all four have struggled to varying degrees or shown signs of fatigue in recent outings.

Extreme workloads like this typically aren’t sustainable, especially when those bullets are fired this early into the six-month marathon. And these performance-related hiccups are likely only the beginning of a much larger issue — the risk of injuries.

Toronto has already had to overcome the losses of Erik Swanson, who’s yet to pitch this season, and Nick Sandlin at the back end of its bullpen, plus Ryan Burr as a depth arm — departures that have contributed to the current top four’s heightened workloads. If they continue down this troubling path, chances are that list of injured relievers will grow even longer.

The Blue Jays need to find ways to alleviate the pressure that the back end of the ‘pen has faced this season. Scoring more runs, of course, would be the best sure-fire solution for that problem. But while the offence has homered eight times in the last six games, they remain one of the worst-scoring lineups in the seventh inning or later since Apr. 16, as evidenced by their 25th-ranked 63 wRC+ (100 league average).

When a team scores its runs is often just as important as scoring them in the first place. For a bullpen that’s been running on fumes in recent weeks, this team could certainly use more of the late-game magic that propelled them to three straight come-from-behind victories against the Red Sox and Guardians last week.

But they could also benefit from another arm or two graduating into manager John Schneider’s circle of trust. Rookie Mason Fluharty — one run allowed with 11 strikeouts over his previous 12 innings — is well on his way to emerging into that group, filling a need that Yariel Rodríguez — worth minus-0.4 fWAR in 14.1 innings — has failed to take hold of in his transition from a starter.