Blue Jays' Rotation Has More Question Marks than Answers

Back in early August, when the Blue Jays were on an absolute post-trade deadline roll, winning 11 straight and crushing all who dared to face them, I wrote something about the Jays' pitching "coming together at the exact right moment," before I caught myself.

Early August is, of course, quite a long way from the exact right moment for a pitching staff to come together, and while it certainly augured well that the Jays' pitchers—and their starters in particular—were cruising after the addition of David Price to anchor the staff and Troy Tulowitzki and Ben Revere to improve the club's defence, we're seeing here in early September some cracks in the facade.

Mark Buehrle is banged up, seeing starts pushed back to help him better recover from the rigors of pitching, and not doing a particularly good job of it when he does make it to the mound. It isn't just that he's failing the eye test, though. Buehrle's swinging strike rate, while never good (he ranks last in the big leagues among qualified starters this season at just 4.9 percent), has sunk to new depths over his last six starts. Since August 1, a span of six outings, his rate has been a meager 3.5 percent.

His velocity, also never good, has still managed to become problematic of late, too. When he's needed to over the years, Buehrle has been able to hump up his offerings to 87 or 88 mph, but since the middle of July, his maximum velocities have sat closer to 85, with his top four-seam fastball failing to even top that in his last three games.

That sort of thing will eventually happen to the arm of a pitcher who has logged so many innings in his career—Buehrle is the big leagues' active innings leader. But while it's better that he's coming apart now than in three weeks, with there still being a chance to get him righted (he had a cortisone shot this week in order to reduce inflammation in his throwing shoulder), it's compounding a legitimate problem the Jays might face with their rotation, given that Drew Hutchison's dismal season continues, and that expectations for Marcus Stroman to come in and make an instant impact took a hit in his start for the Buffalo Bisons at Pawtucket on Monday.

Hutchison has, actually quite impressively, allowed two earned runs or fewer in 12 of his 27 starts. He went at least six innings in all but three of those, too. But it's the other starts—only three with three earned runs (one of which was a disaster in early August against the Twins that featured four unearned runs, as well, and helped provide the justification for his demotion to Buffalo at the end of that month), four with four earned, and an ugly eight starts with five earned runs or more—that have shortened his rope to almost nothing. Especially after a pair of absolute dogs in his last two starts.

He's got a somewhat high line-drive rate (24 percent), but it's not one that jumps out as terrible. What really stands out, though, is the fact that he's also had nine starts in which more than 30 percent of balls in play were line drives, and in seven of those it was above 35 percent. Given that the league average line-drive rate this season is 20.9 percent, that's not a great recipe for success, as his long string of awful outings shows. Of course, that doesn't speak to the why of Hutchison's baffling struggles—a hard question to answer, statistically, because it seems like he can quickly turn into a different pitcher from one inning to the next—but by now that's almost beside the point. As the Blue Jays start to look to the construction of their playoff roster, they're quite likely going to look past Hutchison. He's running out of time to regain the club's confidence, and understandably so.

Stroman's biggest obstacle is also time, though his trajectory is much more in the forward direction than either of his two teammates. His knee, he says, is entirely healthy. He worked on all his pitches during the summer as he rehabbed from a torn ACL in his left knee, and claims to have improved his changeup in the process. But there's only so much one can do to replicate what it must be like throwing off a big league mound (while wearing a knee brace) to the best hitters in the world in the middle of a playoff race. And Stroman's performance for Buffalo this week suggests that he may be more of a work in progress still than a fully-formed ace.

Of course, maybe that sets the stage even better for an utterly glorious return to the big leagues Saturday against the Yankees in New York—a scene that would be very much in keeping with the against-all-odds nature of Stroman's personal brand—but the savvy money says that he looks more like a guy in the middle of his spring training, when all the hitters he's facing are deep into midseason form.

Yet the Jays will surely give Stroman every chance to succeed from here out. They'd be crazy not to—crazy to even contemplate getting bounced from the playoffs without using Stroman to his fullest—it just means that one of Buehrle or Hutchison will likely end up on the outside looking in when the time comes to put together the club's playoff rotation (and decide who is even on the roster). Marco Estrada, though he continues to have an excellent season, doesn't necessarily have the tightest grip on his spot, either, and could especially end up in the bullpen for the playoffs if Buehrle bounces back.

This is hardly the worst problem in the world to have. Still, though, if Stroman falters, or has a setback with his knee, these next few weeks for Buehrle and Hutchison will be crucial. They will be for the Jays' playoff rotation, as well.