OverDrive - Griffin on the Blue Jays' foundational issues, the bullpen faltering and the limited positives on the team

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

GriffsThePitch.com Richard Griffin joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the Blue Jays, the foundational issues of the team during the losing skid, the usage of bullpen on the decline, the rotation's inconsistent performances, if there are positives on the lineup and more.

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uh... griff were four games under five hundred now the sudden uh... john schnider just you know he can't stand l a wants to get out of l a's using all these different analogies to explain what the hell's going on Yet they're in LA to play the Angels not the Dodgers and they've lost two games in a row Is this rock bottom or we still moving towards rock bottom? Where do we stand on things right now? Well before we get into that I got my own good news bad news. The good news, bad news for the Dodgers or for the Blue Jays is they're in LA but they're not playing the Dodgers. The bad news is they're playing the Angels and they're getting swept.

Yes. That is troubling. My good news is I'm in an NHL playoff scoring pool and i got me lander and ratman the whole time i heard about the issue be winning and i think i'm i have to be uncomfortable i just found out today that i've taken over first place and i'm not expecting to give it up out of the bag

the bad news is that i've found out today also it's the first time in my life i'm older than the pope yeah it's concerning man It's the first time in my life I'm older than the Pope, so... Yeah, that is concerning, man. The Pope Leo, eh? Yeah, from Chicago. From Chicago's. Deep dish guy. I got him here.

Bumper off. Right? Chicago popcorn guy. Has to be, I would think. Yeah, it's not good, man. It's not good. And what is concerning the last two games is that Jeff Hoffman has been so good for them.

He's been so dialed in. He's been automatic for the most part all year and I don't even know why he was in two nights ago. I guess I get it. They didn't play on Monday but it wasn't a safe situation. They were losing the game. He comes in and gets blown up even more. I have no idea why he was in on Tuesday.

And then last night he comes in. It's 4-1. I guess it was 4-2 and on tuesday and then lastly he comes in its for one of his was for two and he steps in it happens again that really last four games have been uh... the bullpen uh... coughing up lead late so i mean they lost with a legit to run last

you know if you turn that around and john shnighton said well we're not close with that but remember last year he told me that he thought that the bullpen cost his team 10 wins and I was using that as a reason why they could turn it around with this bullpen and be a mid-80s win team well they're a quarter way into the season and the bullpens already cost them four wins so just simple math tells you that it's not helping them this year having Hoffman and having Jimmy Garcia back and the problem with the bullpen is that you've got your top two guys both slumping at the exact same time and I'm thinking that maybe one way and when they use the excuse and I heard it on TV on the

broadcast is that these guys have been used a lot and you know they're probably tired it's May the 8th. If you've hit the wall on May the 8th then this is going to be a very very very long season. So I'm thinking that maybe what they could do, because there's an old injury that when you don't really want to identify what it is in baseball, you call it dead arm. You might want to give alternately Hoffman and Jimmy Garcia a 15 day stint on the IL with dead arm and just let them refuel and catch their breath because they're going to be needed as this season goes on. Otherwise, it will be a long, long disastrous season.

So Griff, before you were coming on, I was going to, you know, I was trying to paint a rosier picture and say, you know, we're still early in the season. Is there something where you're like, okay, this team is close on this or, you know, if you could just have this, that it's starting to turn the corner? Like, is it just so many facets that are not firing for the group that has put them here? Or is there any type of silver lining where you could point to and go, well, this guy's on the cusp of playing well, or he's starting to hit the ball well or something like that. Is there anything positive to gravitate to?

Jamie, if you remember my attempt at Nostradamus early in the season, I said that that Mad Max would make 25 starts this year so far. So far, it's been three innings and 15.5 million dollars. But I would say that looking for a silver lining you've got a guy like Santander, I can see him starting to swing the bat a lot better. It hasn't showed up in the home run results or the batting average but he's swinging the bat better. Alejandro Kirk is swinging the bat better. Vlad is Vlad. He just needs to add power. I mean, he's hitting 119 mile an hour ground ball and 120 mile an hour single. So he just needs to elevate those and we say that every year early in the season with him.

But that's not enough. I mean, they've already sent Roden back. They've sent Davis Schneider that we all knew shouldn't even have been on the team coming out of spring training. They sent him back. The bench is not strong. I mean, they've spent so much money on their starting players and that's the difference between the LA Dodgers and everyone else. The Dodgers don't care how much they're spending on their bench. So when there's an injury, they've got basically someone else's starting player filling in. And such is not the case for the Blue Jays and other teams

that are trying to be playing among the big boys. And so Spencer Turnbull is the guy that they're looking 32 year old, he threw a no hitter with the Tigers. He had a promising career, but he's only made 34 starts in his last five years. Graded 2020 was the COVID season. 2022 he missed completely with Tommy John surgery. But that might be their best shot at completing a five man rotation.

And Bowden Francis has become a roller coaster because teams have made adjustments. And I'm going on and on and I really haven't come up with an answer. Concerning to me, like the last guy you mentioned there, Francis, you know, was just, it's a classic example of a guy red hot in August and September when the season's over to his credit He did it and he was phenomenal. He was phenomenal But it was always going to be cautiously optimistic

That you believe that would just extrapolate into 30 32 starts the next year and he's getting blown up like he's getting hit really really hard every time he's out there and You know Scherzer we have no idea when he's gonna pitch so they're trying to patch that together And then the three other guys are making a lot of money and they're all good pitchers But none of them are horses none of them are Cy Young caliber guys And they're Cy Young caliber guys. Yeah, they're not Cy Young caliber guys, but they have had good years. It just doesn't show up when you're not scoring any runs for them. And that's been the case in the past, and that's what I guess I was getting to, was I don't think it was this time last year, it was probably closer to June, where we heard

Gossman and we heard Bassett say, man, there's pressure on us to be perfect. You know, more or less, I'm paraphrasing. That's got to feel like deja vu for them again. Right. Bassett is a guy who, if you really want the pulse of the clubhouse, that's the guy you go to because he's unfiltered. And you know, we all know what's going on in there. But to get someone to say it is the difficult

situation is difficult to do and as you point out Hayes I mean the August September performance by Bowden Francis was because he made a slight adjustment to his repertoire and his pitch usage and so it carried him through two months with nobody really catching on but over the, they get a chance to look at video of him, what he's done, what his tendencies are, and now it's catching up with him. And he might be a fifth starter where you get a one, you know, a good start and a bad start. And if you score enough runs, you can win some of his bad starts.

But this team isn't scoring enough runs to win guys with their good starts No, that's the truth Yet, you know, there's there's a lot of money on his payroll the expectations continue to be high internally. I don't know how You know honest that Necessarily is in terms of the assessment that but that's what they're saying outwardly and publicly Yet here we are 36 games into the season It's made like you said and they're on the verge of possibly being swept by the wrong team in LA It's not it's not good and then it's not gonna get any easier as they head up to Seattle

We can you for one when you're whining about the Workload on May theth for your pitchers, it's not a good sign at all. They're going into a Seattle team that really looks exactly a mirror image of the Blue Jays if the Blue Jays are playing well. They've got a good rotation. They've got questionable hitting, but guys that can step up and carry for a week. The Mariners are doing that and the

Jays don't have anyone doing that. No, they do not right now. We'll see. Maybe tonight's the night, Griff. Thank you for doing this. Appreciate it as always. Yeah, if we can stay up that late, tonight might be the night. Tonight's the night to check out.

Thank you, Rich. All right, man. There's Richard Griffin, griffsthepitch.com. This May, iHeartRadio celebrates Asian Heritage Month. Discover powerful stories, vibrant cultures, and more. There's Richard Griffin, griffsthepitch.com. the voices shaping our world. Listen now on the free iHeartRadio app. And at iHeartRadio.ca