Only one pitcher has made more relief appearances than Mason Fluharty this season: the Athletics’ Hogan Harris, who leads the majors with 31 to begin the campaign.

Fluharty has been a workhorse, too, as the left-hander has already appeared in 32 games thus far — 30 as a reliever and two as an opener. He’s been used more than any other Toronto Blue Jays reliever in 2026. The likes of Louis Varland, Tyler Rogers, Jeff Hoffman and Braydon Fisher are all looking up at him in that regard.

It’s easy to forget that this is still just Fluharty’s second major league season. And yet, the 24-year-old reliever is already more than halfway to last season’s career-high total of 55 appearances. That’s without including the 11 games he logged with Triple-A Buffalo in 2025, or the additional 11 he made during last fall’s post-season.

The last 14 months have featured a strenuous workload for the second-year lefty, who’s compiled 92.2 combined innings (regular season and playoffs) between the majors and minors since the start of last season. For reference, he hadn’t logged more than 140 total innings across his first three seasons of professional ball after joining the Blue Jays organization as a fifth-round selection in 2022.

Fluharty’s results, however, have continued to improve over time despite shouldering as much responsibility as he has to begin his big-league career. So far this season, he’s dialled up his performance to another level, pitching to a 3.97 ERA and 2.34 FIP with a 21.4 per cent strikeout-minus-walk rate (K-BB%) — up 6.5 per cent from ’25.

Additionally, Fluharty currently sits in the 90th percentile or higher in several categories, including xERA (2.03, 99th), xAVG (.167, 99th), average exit velocity against (85.1 m.p.h., 96th), strikeout rate (30.6 per cent, 93rd) and hard-hit rate against (29.3 per cent, 92nd).

He’s also been excellent in left-on-left matchups, perfectly executing when he’s held the platoon advantage, as left-handed batters are slashing just .136/.235/.136 with a 23.5 per cent K-BB% against him. They also haven’t homered off him since Aug. 1, a span of 35.1 consecutive innings — during which he’s only allowed one home run versus righties.

Most of that success derives from Fluharty’s sharp-breaking, low-80s sweeper — his premier swing-and-miss weapon, which lefties are 3-for-30 (.100) and are whiffing over 35 per cent of the time against this season.

Even more impressive is that Fluharty entered spring training as the so-called “second lefty” reliever in the Blue Jays’ bullpen, slotting in behind Brendon Little. Of course, the latter of that duo was demoted to Triple-A in early April, while his other half has continued to emerge as one of the American League’s most formidable left-handed relief pitchers.

He’s riding right alongside notable AL lefty arms such as Aroldis Chapman, Erik Sabrowski and Jacob Latz — only trailing those three in K-BB% among qualified relievers.

The bullpen has, by far, been this team’s biggest strength over these first two months. But they’ve also had to fire a ton of bullets early on — Rogers, Varland, Hoffman and Fisher have made 28 relief appearances each in ’26 — due to a lack of consistent run support, causing that high-leverage group to operate with minimal margin for error in most situations.

That’s taken a massive toll on those arms, especially after recently concluding a 17-game stretch without an off-day. We’ve already started to see a few leaks begin to seep through those cracks, with both Tommy Nance (forearm) and Joe Mantiply (knee) hitting the injured list last month, further adding to an already far-too-long list of players on the shelf.

Fortunately, the Blue Jays’ back-end arms — Fluharty, Varland, Rogers, Hoffman and Fisher — have successfully staved off the injury bug so far. That group has been running on fumes lately, though, and the longer it takes for the offence to hit its stride, the more they’ll each be at risk of also winding up on the IL.

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