“Overworked” doesn’t begin to describe the 2026 Toronto Blue Jays’ bullpen.

Their 253.2 innings of work through 60 games represent the fourth-most innings by a relief unit in the majors. Only the Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies, and Chicago White Sox have thrown more innings in relief.

Since the Rockies have a 22-38 record, it’s expected they’d have a sizable number of innings on their ledger. The White Sox and Nationals are two teams authoring pleasant surprise stories, but it feels like a fall from grace is in their near future.

And then there’s the Blue Jays, the team that can’t seem to keep a starting pitcher (or position player, for that matter) healthy. One-third of the way through the season, the Blue Jays have used 26 pitchers to help them navigate the first part of the schedule.

Even the most die-hard Blue Jays fan would be hard-pressed to name all 26 of those pitchers. That motley crew includes names like Josh Fleming, Tanner Andrews, Chase Lee, Austin Voth, and most recently, Connor Seabold and Hayden Juenger.

Last year, the Jays used 38 pitchers, but technically only 34 pitchers if you subtract the appearances by position players like Tyler Heineman, Ali Sanchez, Michael Stefanic, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. If we take away all position player pitching appearances, the 2026 Blue Jays are already 74% of the way to matching their total pitcher output from the 2025 season.

Credit to this starting rotation, but they’ve held it together after losing key pieces like Cody Ponce, Max Scherzer, and José Berríos due to injury, as well as Eric Lauer, who was DFA’d last month. This doesn’t even mention Dylan Cease’s recent trip to IL Island (that’s what we’re calling it now). Whether used as a traditional starter or an opener, the Blue Jays have deployed 11 different starters on the season.

The Blue Jays have only three traditional starters in their starting rotation right now, with the Spencer Miles experiment trucking along as a band-aid solution in the interim. So they’re running out two bullpen days every five games, which isn’t a sustainable formula for a winning ball club.

Reinforcements are on the way, as Scherzer and Shane Bieber continue their rehab process, but for now, the Blue Jays are riding out this stopgap solution until at least one more arm rejoins the rotation.

As a result, Toronto’s bullpen has been asked to pick up a lot of innings. The Blue Jays have five relievers in the top 20 among relievers with the most appearances, with Mason Fluharty (1st), Braydon Fisher (2nd), Louis Varland, Jeff Hoffman and Tyler Rogers (T-6th). Hat tip to Johnny Giunta of Gate 14 for this one:

With a full five-man starting rotation, manager John Schneider likely would deploy his bullpen in a different fashion, but he’s been forced to lean upon his regulars more frequently than he’d ideally like to. Due to a reliever’s recent workload, the manager can’t call upon the ideal reliever for a late-game situation.

Sometimes the next best, or the next to the next best option has to suffice, hence Hoffman’s appearance in the ninth inning against the Orioles a few games ago, called upon to protect a four-run lead.

Over the last week alone, everyone in the Blue Jays bullpen — save for Juenger and Seabold — has thrown over 40 pitches. Hoffman and Macko threw 68 pitches apiece over the last seven days.

What’s even more impressive about this Blue Jays bullpen unit is not only have they been tasked with some of the most innings of any relief corps, they’re excelling through this increased workload. At 2.6 fWAR on the season, the Blue Jays rank as the sixth-best bullpen in baseball.

They’re not quite in the same echelon of the San Diego Padres, captained by Mason Miller, but Varland has been neck-and-neck with Miller in terms of overall production as a reliever. The man simply known as “The Committee” is making a strong case to be named an All-Star this year.

It sounds like Cease should avoid a lengthy IL stint, but Scherzer may be the closest to returning to the starting rotation. Bieber is working his way back as well, but if all goes according to plan, Cease would slot back into the starting five within the next few weeks.

In terms of bullpen reinforcements, aside from promoting Brendan Cellucci, Chad Dallas, or CJ Van Eyk from Triple-A Buffalo, there aren’t many other options in the minor leagues. According to Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, Tommy Nance and Yimi García threw bullpens last week, and both would be welcome additions to the Blue Jays’ beleaguered bullpen.

Save for those alternatives, all the Blue Jays have left to fortify their pitching staff are waiver claims, and the potential for a trade. The Blue Jays famously overhauled their bullpen on the fly in 2021, acquiring Adam Cimber and Trevor Richards in separate trades to aid a pitching staff that desperately needed the backup.

This Blue Jays bullpen is doing yeoman’s work, and although some relievers are faring better than others individually, as a unit, they’ve excelled at protecting leads and keeping games close.