The Toronto Blue Jays Are In BIG *TROUBLE*… WHAT Should They Do? | Blue Jays Rumours & Breakdown

The Toronto Blue Jays Are In BIG *TROUBLE*… WHAT Should They Do? | Blue Jays Rumours & Breakdown

I’m not going to lie to anybody. Like that one really defeated me. You are Locked on Blue Jays, your daily Toronto Blue Jays podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked on Blue Jays. Thank you for making Lockdown Blue Jays your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever get your podcast found on YouTube or Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner. Visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your future bets now. As always, I’m Britney Wasco. He’s Carter First. You can find us on Twitter Braden Few Wasco Carter First 2 as well on our main oneJS. You can also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok, locked on Bluebls. And if you’re new here to YouTube, hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already. We really appreciate it. It’s free. It’s not like it takes up any space or anything. Might as well. You get your shorts, your podcast, your live streams, the videos, the whole deal. So, hit that subscribe button. Um, oh, where to start? Um, the bullpen is just the one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. That sucked. This this loss defeated me. Um, Brendan Little is getting to the point where I might send him to Mars in my head because that guy is just is just nowhere to be found. Bob Bashed is an absolute dog. Dalton Varso’s sick. I don’t know, Carter. Where do you want to start? I’m just defeated. I really am. Yeah. Where’s the the panic meter at now regarding the bullpen? You didn’t give me a number yesterday. Hey, I don’t know if you want to give me one today, but it seems like with every game since August, the bullpen is getting worse and worse and worse. And I was trying to look if it was arm fatigue. I was looking at some mechanical things with some guys, different just arm slots with how the spin rates are looking. And there’s it’s just not good. A lot of things regarding the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen is not good. When we look at Brennan Little specifically, it could be an arm fatigue thing. This is the most innings that he has thrown in his major league career. But you look at guys like Seranti Dominguez who hasn’t really been that bad, but when you look at it in totality, he hasn’t necessarily been lights out. Tommy Nance had his first blow up in a long time today. It’s tough to close the ball game out. Jeff Hoffman’s been very inconsistent. Like you look at a lot of these guys. Lar has been very inconsistent since going to the Toronto Blue Jays. You have Eric Lowry, you had Eastston Lucas who you could have went to. But overall, it’s just when you look at this Toronto Luigi team and how it’s currently constructed, whoever you’re really rolling out now out of that bullpen, like you’re sitting on the edge of your seat, you’re crossing your fingers. You are hoping that they don’t give up a million runs. Like, you’re almost okay now if they give up one run in a game where your offense is performing, but your offense can’t put up eight runs every single ball game. Show this on the broadcast for in games that they score four or less runs. The Toronto Blues are 20 and 55. That’s four runs is not going to get it done with the way these, you know, the veteran pitchers are on this team. They’re going to give you a chance to win, but they’re not going to be lights out per se when you look at Chris Bass, who was really good in today’s ball game, like gives you a chance to win over six plus innings, two earned runs. But, uh, the bullpen right now, every single time, no matter who it is, goes out, it is scary to watch this Toronto Blue Jays team. And with one of the most, if not the most important series of the season coming up against the New York Yankees over the weekend, it is not a good spot to be when you’re now only two and a half games up, I believe it is, in the AL East. Well, and and realistically as okay as you know, we talked about playing this Reds team and you know, oh, what does it matter? You know, is it more important to get the Yankees? Of course it is. But also, losing series back to back if that ends up being the case is not a good thing for a team that’s trying to be first in the division. This is not good. and and the way this this game played out, Bo Bashette singlehandedly provides your team a chance to win this game and the bullpen once again blows up. There are a lot more questions right now that I have surrounding this team than there are answers. I think when I look at this team and compare them to other teams in the league, it just comes back down to the fact that who can I rely on to perform. And as good as I think the offense has been, I can’t rely on the offense to put up eight runs a game. It’s that’s just not going to happen. And I think you could have this is another game I think it it was obviously in your grasps to win and instead of being the Toronto Blue Jays team that we have seen all season in these close games being able to pull it out. We’re now seeing in these close games this bullpen be so bad that all you almost didn’t have a shot. And when I saw Tommy Nance come out for the final inning, I was like, “Well, okay, you don’t got really a whole lot of options today and he’s been great. Let him try. Let him go for it.” Worst case, it’s like, “Well, that game was blown because of Tommy Nance and it’s like, well, you can’t really be that upset about at at that guy because that’s not a spot he should be pitching in.” But then again, you bring in Brendan Little and soon as they did that, I was like, “This game’s over.” I I I looked at my mom. We were on the golf course. I had my phone up with the watching the game and I literally looked over at her and I’m like, “This game’s over. Brennan Little’s blowing this game 100% of the time.” And sure enough, he blows the game. It It’s just It’s just typical at this point. You You can almost tell exactly what’s going to happen at the end of ball games because this bullpen I don’t even want to say inconsistent. They have been very consistent. Consistently. Well, I was going to say something. Consistently. Really bad. Yeah. It’s tough for Don Schneider. It’s tough for just bullpen volatility when you look at how good some of these guys were at the start of the season. Brennan Little was that like he was that guy at some point in the season where you’re like even with Jeff Hoffman when when he was really good before you had Louis Varlin Dominguez like even when Jimmy Garcia was here like at times Brennan Little was your guy that you were relying on and throwing in these high lever situations and it’s crazy how a switch can just flip with a lot of these bullpen guys. So it puts John Schneider in in a tough spot. you have this lefty that you’ve relied on this entire season and then all of a sudden he’s fallen off the face of the earth and you don’t even feel comfortable throwing him in in the sixth inning, never mind in the eighth or the ninth inning in this case, closing out a baseball game. So like you look around the bullpen and you look at Jeff Hoff been struggling. You look at Louis Varlin who struggled. You look at Dominguez who’s been kind of what you expected. You can’t throw Dominguez every single time he goes out there. Brennan Legs been struggling. Yario Rodriguez who had a good outing at least today or yesterday the day that you you know the game happened. But uh like Eric Lowour, like you can use him in uh long relief, but Eastston Lucas, Braden Fischer when he comes up, like there’s a lot of guys that have a lot of questions within this bullpen and we’re going to need somebody to kind of come out of this situation and just have a couple guys that you can rely on. You can work through, you know, a couple guys going through some spells in a bullpen, but when it’s almost everybody, I’ll still say other than Tommy Nance, it’s tough to go in there and like you said, a situation that you probably shouldn’t be thrown into and close out a baseball game like that. But when it’s almost everybody in your bullpen and you feel like you really have nowhere to turn to, games like this are going to happen. And when you’re in the battle for an AL East title, when you’re two and a half games up on both the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, it you can’t be throwing away games like this this consistently. No. A and that’s the big component here is that if this is the way the team is going to play down the stretch, I don’t love the confidence level going into the playoffs. Again, there’s still a month of baseball left. Now, just under a month of baseball left, but you asked me at the beginning or at the end of last episode and now the beginning of this episode, what is my panic button situation? It’s it’s damn near right there. It’s it’s an eight or a nine at this point. I’m I’m freaking out because this game it was it was just exactly what I thought was going to happen uh in in the top in the bottom of the ninth. I I literally did not know who they were going to throw. I I figured Dominance is probably coming out. And weirdly enough, I was more okay with that than Brendan Little. And if that doesn’t tell you exactly where your panic level has to be with this bullpen, I don’t know. You might be out to lunch because this is this is almost disaster territory here. here if this bullpen can’t figure it out. This might be a very quick playoff trip for this Toronto Blue Jays team. If this bullpen can’t figure it out even in the slightest, see like having your bullpen being the thing that kind of ruins it for you is one of the more frustrating things if not the most frustrating thing out of all facets in the game. Like you’ve seen the Yankees with their defense that can ruin some things and it’s tough to watch the Mariners when they came to town. They’re base running. There’s a lot of times they were running on Aston Bar. We know not to do that if that guy’s in the outfield. But like when your bullpen goes into a baseball game, especially in this game where you kind of felt like you were behind the eightball the entire game. Chris Basset absolutely battling on the mound, you know, he comes out for that seventh inning because, you know, there’s a lot of bullpen uncertainty going on right now. He tries to battle, he throws 107 pitches, starts flipping the curveball in there, which not as much at the top of the zone, which I know you’ll be in favor of, but use the counter effectively as well. like this is a guy that wants to win and is doing everything he possibly can to give this team a buy to put this team in the best position to get a win. And then you go out there, Chris Basset kind of gives it this all the offense battles and then your bullpen in the ninth inning when Boette hits an like a such a clutch home run in the top of the ninth inning. Daltton Vo adds to it. That gave me a little bit of hope. I was kind of nervous still after the Boette home run, but then Daltton Vo kind of gets the bat around a very like circular swing. you. It kind of looks like he throws the bat out and then really just tries to pull it to the inside and that’s how he hits the, you know, his pullside home runs. It allowed me to have a sense of hope and then it didn’t matter who you threw in, you just you could just feel that the Reds were going to come back in that game. So, I’m just like interested in what your opinion is like if for you if the team is struggling, if maybe their starting pitching isn’t very good, maybe it is their offense, maybe it’s their bullpen, maybe it’s horrible defense. What is it for you specifically that’s like the most frustrating way that your baseball team can come up short and lose a game? It has to be the bullpen. Don’t get me wrong, it is frustrating when your offense can’t perform. It really is. But when it’s the bullpen, it feels like the most important pieces of your game are really rolling. The starting pitching, the hitting, everything’s really rolling. Those are the two major components here. Then your bullpen is like, “Hey, somebody go in there and do a job.” And nobody can do a job. That’s super super frustrating. So I I’m I’m with you. I think the bullpen might be it would be the toughest way to go into a playoffs and lose because you know that the rest of the pieces may have been there. And realistically, if you would have told me before this season that this was going to be our bullpen, I would have been thrilled. So to to be at the point we are now, I I’m blown away. I I really don’t even know what to say. I I don’t know what the fix is. I’m not in the room being, you know, hearing from these guys and what they actually think is the problem here, but in my mind, we’re getting to the point of a full bullpen meeting. Everybody get together, sit down, sit in a room because nobody’s doing their job. And maybe it’s time for a little round table with the boys. Let the I I I think it’s passed at the point where let the guys talk to each other. I think management needs to be in that room having a conversation. John Schneider, the pitching coaches, the pitching staff, everybody get them in a room, start talking, start figuring out a solution because Carter, me and you, we’re not we’re not in those. We’re not in meetings. We’re not in the rooms. We’re not chatting with these guys, uh, you know, outside of the media, whatever. So there could be stuff going on behind the scenes maybe that we don’t know because there has to be something that you don’t your entire bullpen doesn’t fall apart like this just to fall apart. So if it is overt taxing and if that’s the case these guys need to be making that clear and and and then you have to then know okay do we have to go to Eric Lowour do we have to go to Chris Basset and put one of them in the bullpen just to eat a ton of innings or you do a double start almost where you let one guy go and the other guy comes in and picks up you go four and five or something like that and you say hey eat for a couple of games give this bullpen a break. I I don’t know. I don’t know the solution. I’m just spitballing here because I I’m I’m at the point where I don’t know anymore. I think that’s the hardest part is that like the solution is not clear. Like there’s a bunch of things that kind of look like it’s going on. It doesn’t look like it’s one specific thing that’s kind of hindering this entire bullpen. You can look at it very specifically with all of your players. You be like, “This is Brennon Little’s problem. It’s a lot of it is strike throwing. A lot of it’s just his ability to locate the knuckle curve and then when he is in the zone with the fast ball, is it right over the middle of the plate?” A lot of the time it has been. When you look at Louis Varane, it’s a lot of the secondary issues. When it’s Jeff Hoffman, it’s kind of just it seems like confidence a little bit. Again, trying to find the zone with the fast ball. Sometimes kind of hanging that splitter a little bit. The slider is not using it maybe as much as he should. So, some of it’s execution, some it’s pitch selection, some of it is just command. Like, there’s a bunch of different issues going on in this bullpen. And who do you turn to? Like, are we confident giving, you know, these guys a break, turn to a guy like Eastston Lucas to eat innings in a playoff race? Are we confident with Eric Lauer coming out of the bullpen? I think like obviously you’re taking Lowour over Eastan Lucas, but for a guy that hasn’t pitched out of the bullpen that has had a lot of rest recently and like if you use Eric Lowour for four innings, he’s not available for the next three, four games. So like that is a part-time fix, but that’s not necessarily a long-term. You still have to deal with the two, three, four other games in between those Eric Lauer appearances. And yes, maybe your starters can kind of help you out. Kevin Gossman’s looked very good. Shane Bieber has has had the ability to eat innings. Max Sherzer looks like he’s going to be okay. But in terms of the bullpen, you can’t get around using some of these guys. And yes, you can limit some of their uses us usage down the stretch, but once we get to these playoff scenarios, you’re gonna have to rely on Jeff Hoffman, Saranth Dominguez, Louis Varl, Brennan Little. These are the guys that like at least for uh the first part of the season and now on the back half of the season with the additions in Varin and Santi Dominguez. These are the guys that you’re going to be relying on down the stretch. And if they cannot be effective for you, you’re not going to be able to go anywhere because what are the other options that you’re going to have to rely on in those stretches? These are the guys that you’re paying and you brought in to be your backend guys and they’re going to have to perform if this team if this team wants any single chance not even just you know win the American League to win the playoff win a playoff game maybe even make the playoffs like this team should be in the playoffs but crazier things have happened and this bullpen continues to blow up maybe that is going to impact other facets of the game as well. Yeah, you know what I we can continue talking about this. I think let’s just drag it over here because uh I there’s a couple specific things I want to talk about, but there’s also some of the on the offensive side of the ball that I want to discuss as well. Um and a whole bunch more to come. I I want to see how this team can rebound in game two. We want to know your guys’ thoughts, feelings down below in the comments section about this bullpen. I mean, we’ve been This has been the Let’s take a break. I’ll come back with that before I absolutely smash my head against the wall. We’ll be right back. Today’s episode is sponsored by Prize Picks, the daily fantasy app where making the right call can actually pay off. You and I make decisions every day, but on Prize Picks, being right means cashing in. With Football Back, Prize Pix is the simplest and fastest way to get into the action. Just pick more than or less than on two to six player projections and you can turn your takes into real prizes all in less than 60 seconds. We have another fantasy draft. uh the day that we are recording this on the Monday. I got one Tuesday as well. So, we’re really starting to clean up uh and finish up our fantasy drafts for the rest of the year. So, a lot of the players that I am drafting, at least uh in a lot of my fantasy leagues and the most recent ones, I’m going to be kind of parlaying and betting on week one as well. A lot more more than for my fantasy team. So, not only I can break to my friends, I can also make a little bit of money with my picks as well. You can download the Prize Pix app today and use code locked on MLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code locked on MLB for $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It’s good to be right. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. You guys know how much I love FanDuel. I talk about all the time. It’s getting to football season. And in football season, I love placing my bets. Uh FanDuel’s making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. If your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bet to use across the app. Talked about this yesterday. My brother got the $150 bonus bet thing. Now it’s $300. That’s double what it was a couple months ago. Get in on it now. Those, you know, those bonus bets you can use when football season gets here in a few days. So, make sure you guys do get in on all of that. So, so are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.com to get started. That’s vanuel.com to place your first $5 bet. So Carter, continuing on um talking a little bit about the bullpen obviously and I I’m going to now re ask you this question from I don’t know when it was uh two weeks, three weeks ago, I’m not sure when we had this conversation. Who are the three guys you’re most confident in right now that you would throw out there in a playoff situation? One game means everything. Who’s your bold? Who’s your seven eight nine right now realistically? Yeah, I got again you got to assume that all these guys are rested. Uh it’s it’s a lot more murky now than it was, you know, maybe a week ago. But like I just said is that you have a lot of these guys that you put in place to rely on in these big situations. If you’re not getting, you know, good performances from Brennan Little, Jeff Hoffman, Siri Dominguez, Louie Barland, Yaro Rodriguez, those five in particular, like I’m not comfortable throwing Eric Lowour in like the eighth inning. I’m not comfortable throwing East Lucas, maybe Braden Fischer if he shows me something down the stretch. Like, would you want Dylan Tate going out in the ninth inning? Like, I’m not comfortable with that whatsoever. So, with the way things are currently right now, like I unfortunately, I just can’t trust Brennan Little with how consistently bad that he has been over this stretch. So, I gotta go with the right-handed pitchers. And I know Louis Varand has not been, you know, very good recently, but he’s my seventh inning guy. I think I right now like how like who else? Maybe Yario Rodriguez. I’d be okay if you wanted to throw him into there. Maybe it’s Tommy Nance. That’s another guy maybe I’m okay with, but I I just like the name value and the stuff better with Louis Varin. Maybe not as much the name value because to that point, you can’t really Doesn’t matter if you’re Vlatty or you’re Ernie Clement. Whoever’s playing better is going to be in the lineup. But Louis Varlin, you know, like the one if you if he doesn’t have his best stuff, you know, he’s going to throw, you know, like 98 99, maybe even touch 100. I’m much more comfortable with that than Tommy Nance, you know, trying to kind of spin his way uh through the order. So then for me, it’s Sir Anthony Dominguez in the eighth. I you might have some walk issues, but the stuff is there. This guy’s been kind of what you expected. And for me, it still has to be Jeff Hoffman. I know a lot of people aren’t going to like that, but like what else? Like what is the turn? What’s the like who else are you going to? Like maybe you threw in Santi Dominguez in the ninth. Then who do you go to in the eighth? Who do you go to in the seventh? So I think right now like the way I you have to account for it is that you got to assume that these guys are going to turn around. You have to hope that these guys are going to turn it around because if they don’t this it’s just not going to go well when you’re playing very good lineups in the playoffs. No, and that’s just where we’re at. Uh for me it’s Yario Rodriguez, it’s Sir Anthony Dominguez, and it’s Jeff Hoffman. And I mean Louis Varand, Yario Rodriguez, take your pick of the of the litter a little bit. Um, and it it has to be Jeff Hoffman. And that’s the problem is that we’re at the point of the season where pretty much decisions have been made. These are your guys. You either you you got to ride with them and hopefully they show up at the big moments. I I want to know your thoughts on this. Bob Bashette just wills your way your team back to a a lead in the in the top of the ninth inning. and you see your your bullpen go out and blow that game, I would be absolutely just defeated. Like I I would be I’d be throwing some helmets at this point already in the in the dugout. And I know these are MLB players. They they want to be team guys, but at what point do you think this lineup starts to even, you know, get a little bit defeated because of this bullpen? It it’s going to happen if this keeps going. Are we at that point yet, you think? Are are guys in the locker room going to have these conversations? I, you know, obviously we’re not there. We can’t speak to it, but I’m talking about, you know, from a you perspective. At what point do you start to get a little bit frustrated here? I mean, they have to notice it. Obviously, they have to know that these guys, you know, giving up a lot more runs than they were at uh at the start of the season. And maybe in the back of their head there is a little bit of this feeling like, hey, we have to add on to the to this game. We have to get runs on their bullpen, which isn’t a bad mentality to have. That’s always the mentality that a baseball team should have. should never be complacent, you know, being up 3-2 in a baseball game. I’d be a lot more comfortable being up 8-2 in that baseball game. So, a lot of these players should have that mentality, but it definitely is does creep into the back of their heads, especially if it’s like a guy that’s consistently been struggling. Like, if they see Brandon Little go out there, like especially in this scenario where he goes out in the ninth and they’ve seen that he has been struggling to command the baseball, throwing the fast ball over the middle a lot more than he used to be. That definitely goes in the back of the head, their head, but the end of the day, they can’t change that. They can’t change what Brennon Little is going to go and do out there. They can’t change what Jeff Hoffman’s going to go out and do out there. They can only control what they’re doing themselves. So I think what like what should be their approach that shouldn’t really change. It should be going into every at bat whether the bullpen is the greatest of all time and you know it’s Mariana Rivera every single start or if you know they go out and it’s Adam Simber every single start. Obviously you prefer the other one. It makes you feel maybe a little bit a little bit more mentally sound at the plate and there isn’t as much pressure. But like if you’re a Bobette, you’re obviously frustrated, but you’re not going to go around and completely like talk crap about your bullpen. Absolutely. Your bullpen at times has been the best part of this baseball team. So, you just got to hope that they can figure it out and hopefully you can kind of pick up your offense a little bit and kind of help him out in this uh this tough stretcher. Funny funny enough, you brought up Marion Rivera, a guy that’s blown some huge games in his day. So, you know what? But I was having a baseball conversation just with some buddies at work and my friend brought that up. I totally get that in big situations your closer blows the game. I get it. We’re getting to a point now though that I’m worried when a closer goes in. I’m not you you wouldn’t be worried if Mariano Rivera win it or some you know what I mean? It’s just a very different conversation. So I bring that up only to bring up the conversation that it’s a very different situation. It’s the feeling in your gut you get when a guy gets up on the mound, right? It’s probably how the Phillies fans feel right now with Jordan Romano. When he goes out there, they’re probably shaking in their boots. I mean, that’s why they got Yand because they didn’t want to deal with Jordan Romano anymore in the ninth inning. Yeah, exactly. So, you you every team gets to a point with a guy that they’re terrified. You and in a closer you can’t have that feeling because the players probably feel it, too. But if you have a guy like Johan Durant, um, you know, I mean, you go down the list of the great closers in the league, but you go down the list, probably a lot of those teams, Andres Munoz, you know, goes in, you think they’re worried about him being able to close the ball game? Probably not realistically. Jeff Hoffman goes into the game, people are worried. Brandon Little goes into the game, people are worried. Yariel Rodriguez, people are worried. It go down the list. Pick the pick of the litter. This is I don’t know, dude. I’m I’m just at the point now where we can’t talk about this every day. You know what I mean? Like like what else is going to happen here? They’re they’re making us kind of talk about it every day cuz it kind of seems like this team’s in trouble a little bit when you look at the bullpen. And it’s not even as much as like I think they could work around some of this bullpen stuff if they weren’t at this point in their schedule. They already kind of got lucky and they played the Twins, the Pirates, the Marlins kind of in that stretch. Now you got a really tough schedule coming around. You got the Yankees, you got the Astros. If your bullpen performs like this, those teams are going to eat you alive. And that is a very quick way to lose ground in the American League is to lose to American League teams that are right below you in the Yankees and the Astros. So like people are starting to panic. There is some validity to that, but I’m not going to completely completely jump off the edge yet. Like there’s we’ve lost one game to the Reds. I know it sucked and we should have won that game, but Hunter Green was pretty dominant. Like Bob Bashette was really the only one that had a pulse in that entire game against Hunter Green. He’s a very good pitcher. Again, you want to win those games, especially, you know, when you’re up in the ninth inning and you get two massive home runs in the top of a ninth inning. But, uh, it’s like you just got to hope that they’re going to bounce back. You can’t give up faith. As much as, you know, it is tough to, you know, stay uh positive about this team right now, like you got to every team goes through stretches like this and you just got to hope that they can get out of the stretch quicker than uh than you know, losing too much ground in the American League. You don’t want them to lose too much ground and find themselves, you know, looking up in the division. And you want the bullpen to figure it out down the stretch, especially with a lot of tough series going on in the playoffs getting closer and closer every single day. Well, and you know, as much as we’re complaining about the bullpen, we have to remember that that pagan on the Reds is a pagan a pagan. Is that how you say it? A pagon. Yeah, I knew it was something weird. Um, he blew it for them. Yeah. And he’s been pretty good this year, like the entirety of the season. Like that’s that’s the thing, like your bullpen, your and your closers, they’re going to blow baseball games. It’s going to happen. It’s going to suck every single time. Like don’t get me wrong, it’s never fun watching your closing pitcher blow a baseball game. And that’s what the people were on Jeff Hoffman. It’s not just Jeff Hoffman, Tommy Nance, Brennan Little, like all of these guys if they go into those closing roles. It’s a lot different going in and closing out a baseball game in the ninth inning when it’s a very close game than going in even if it is high leverage in the sixth inning because even if you do give up some runs, your team still has the opportunity to answer. And that’s the it’s I’ve said this before, the closing pitcher is the last thing you’re going to remember, especially if they do blow that baseball game. It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. and they get walked off. That’s the first thing that people are going to bring up if they are talking about this game like for the right reason for sure. Like that sucked. But uh again, like there’s no point of keeping to dwell on it because there’s nothing that they can do. Like you’re not going to pull anyone up from TripleA that’s going to be your closing pitcher unless you know some people are starting to bring up Treya Savage, which which if he did get brought up to this team, like he’s not going into the closing role. You’re not having a rookie starting pitcher be bolted into your closing role in a playoff stretch. So that’s just kind of where we’re at with the bullpen. just got to hope that things get better and unfortunately our hands are kind of tied with that and the only other argument that some people might draw on is front office didn’t do enough at the trade deadline they should have went out and got another high leverage bullpen arm maybe like a better bullpin arm but you look at Ryan Hley you look at David Bendar Deval like you look around the league with some of these guys they’ve all had their blowup starts as well so at this point it you know maybe they could have did more but at this point it’s on the players the players are going to have to perform the front office can’t really do anything else unless you’re going to rely on Ryan Baraki the players going to have to perform and the players are going have to earn it. Carter, we we looked at their sample size and the that’s probably what the front office did as well. Hey, look at the sample size of what this team’s been able to do through more than half of the season. Be very very good. Why would we add a bullpen closer in here and take that away from Jeff Hoffman? Maybe wreck the room. That’s probably where their heads are at, and I can’t blame them for that. Uh, these guys decided to take a month off of playing baseball. Who is that on? How are you blaming the front office on that? I I don’t I don’t know. I think this is 100% on the players. Um, maybe management if you want to bring up the fact that, you know, tired arms, whatever. Okay, I could accept that. But if not that, it’s the players. At some point, you’re Major League Baseball players. Figure it out. or at least some of you. I don’t know. Anyway, we got a lot more to talk about yet. Obviously, want to tee up game two uh a little bit more and just how important this game is now. And this is exactly, you know, again, before when I look back, I said they were going to lose game one and then go on to win the next two. But in the way that this game happened now, I’m pretty pretty worried about my take. We’ll come back after this and talk more about it. Today’s episode is also sponsored by Upside. Hey Locked on Blue Jays fans, are you still paying full price for gas? Stop leaving money behind and get real cash back every time you fill up with the free Upside app. Simply download the free Upside app in the app store or Google Play right now and start earning cash at the pump today. Use my limited promo code season and get an extra 25 cents back per gallon on your first fillup. You can make up to $300 a day or a $300, sorry, a year just from buying the gas you already need. $300 a day would be an absolute steal. I think everybody would already be on that if that was the deal they were offering. At first, it I thought it was too good to be true, but it is totally legit. Real people are getting paid just to make their daily commutes, and you can, too. Plus, you can cash out anytime to your bank account, PayPal, or an e gift card for Amazon and other brands. Don’t let this offer drive on by. Download the free upsite app now using my limited time promo code season for a limited time 25 cent per gallon bonus. That’s promo code season. Offers may vary based on user and location. Go to upsite.com for the terms and condition. So Carter just continuing on. Obviously still a game two. This isn’t all over. It’s not like it’s the end of days. There are still lots of ball to be played. still a month. So, how do you feel about game two now going in with the with what just happened yesterday. What does this team need to do now? Is it throw away the tape? Don’t look at it. Try to put this game completely out of your mind. Live in the moment, live in the dayto-day? That it’s got to be, right? Yeah. I guess one positive that you can look at is they didn’t use a ton of bullpen arms. Like Chris Basset ate six innings and Yari Rodriguez pitched for two of them. Brennan Lily, you’re probably not using. Tommy Nance, you’re probably not using, but you have everyone else available. You have Jos Bereios that has looked a little bit better in, you know, his his last start before then was in a little bit of a bad stretch. So, you got to hope that he can provide you a little bit of length as well. But you got a lot of guys available like Louis Barllin, Jeff Hoffman, Saranthy Dominguez. The guys that again you’re going to have to rely on down the stretch will be available in this game. I mean, hopefully you just get a little bit more offense. Nick Leolo is coming off the IIL. I think he’s made one start, so he should be pretty much fully stretched out and it wasn’t like a crazy long uh stint, but he has been very effective this year. So, uh going to be interesting to see how they can attack the young pitcher. David Schneider should be in the lineup as well. So, you’re going to be pretty excited for that obviously, but uh just looking for better bullpen performances obviously like just let’s not give up a run or a million runs, a lead, I’ll say, in the ninth inning. That’s that’s where we’ll start. And then hopefully the offense amidst a time where the bullpen is struggling can, you know, just score nine runs. So you don’t really have to be worried about who in the bullpen is going to pitch for the Luch’s ball club. Yeah, not blowing a lead in the ninth inning might be uh just just a ton to ask for at this point. Um yeah, I don’t know. I I think this game is super important. I I think you having the Yankee or them having the Yankees coming up uh and then you drop backtoback series, I think would be detrimental uh at this point of the year. I think they they absolutely need to get these last two otherwise I don’t know how that Yankee series is going to go. Well, and there’s like you throw everything against the wall in that Yankee series because you have an off day Thursday. You can kind of do that with the Red Series as well. You have an off day Thursday, you have an off day Monday. So like you have all players ready to go. You have throw everything you possibly can at this Yankees team. It’s like we said, one of the bigger series of the year. You play the Boston Red Sox farther along the line. Maybe that will be like the newer biggest series of the year at that point. But you can only kind of focus on what’s in front of you. Again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves with that New York Yankee series. Let’s focus on the Reds. Let’s try to win a series against the Reds. Get the momentum back. Stop the panic and fear from going around Toronto Blue Jays land because a lot of people are running around like with their chick or like chicken story with their heads cut off because yeah, it’s uh it’s a little bit of a scary time. They haven’t really given you a lot to be positive from at least from the bullpen. So, that’s all we’re asking for. I think that’s the main thing is just let’s just not blow an lead in the eighth or the ninth inning. Let’s take a lead into the eighth and ninth inning. I guess we got to start with that. But Brandon, is there anything else to add before uh we do take off for this episode and hopefully are in a little bit of better spirits talking to you guys after hopefully a win from the Toronto Blue Jays? Yeah. Uh I’ll throw this in here because uh it is sort of nice if you guys can all go do this. We have an important request. Lockdown wants to hear from you. We put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make our our and your favorite podcast even better. This is your chance to tell us what you like, what you don’t, answer questions about advertising. Go to lockdownpodcast.com/servey to get started. Everyone who completes the survey will be entered for a chance to win one of 10 $100 Amazon gift cards. Again, that’s locked onpodcast.com/servey. You can find the link in the show notes. We always appreciate you guys. I do got one more thing. I just uh remembered the last thing I talked about the fantasy updates yesterday. And uh there was two A’s, the two guys with a names that are in our fantasy league. So, I gave the shout out to the wrong guy and made the playoffs. So, Austin, congratulations to you. But it was Adam Adam Demer who did get first place in the lockdown league at least in the regular season and I had second. I believe Jim Holler. I might have this mixed up, but you got a buy. And then also we have Back Door Sliders. That is Justin Lord with the buy. And I was right. Braden did not make the playoffs in either league. So, uh, hopefully the Toronto Blue Jays do not have the same fate as Braden Lasco’s fantasy teams. Thank you guys for watching and we will talk to you guys again tomorrow.

Things keep getting worse for the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen. In one of the most devastating losses of the season, the Blue Jays manage to blow another game after some late game heroics from Bo Bichette and Daulton Varsho put them ahead by 2 going into the bottom of the ninth. The bullpen has been a massive issue this past month, and we discuss what needs to be done to help overcome this horrific stretch. We break down all the key moments, highlights, storylines from this game while bringing you the most up to date news and analysis right here on this episode of Locked On Blue Jays.

Your current Toronto Blue Jays roster: Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Kevin Gausman, Yimi Garcia, Anthony Santander, Alek Manoah, Jeff Hoffman, Yariel Rodriguez, George Springer, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Andres Gimenez, Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, Brayden Fisher, Max Scherzer, Leo Jimenez, Davis Schneider, Ernie Clement, Jake Bloss, Nick Sandlin, Bowden Francis, Joey Loperfido, Orelvis Martinez, Ricky Tiedemann, Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes, Seranthony Dominguez, Christian Bethancourt, Louis Varland, Tommy Nance, Jonatan Clase, Tyler Heineman , Myles Straw, Shane Bieber, Easton Lucas, Paxton Schultz, Mason Fluharty, Eric Lauer

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