Blue Jays' bullpen has the chance to make history -- but does Toronto really want that?

Only 20 relievers in the Majors have racked up at least 28 appearances this season. A quarter of those relievers play for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Mason Fluharty leads the league with 31 appearances. Braydon Fisher is tied with the Athletics’ Hogan Harris for second place with 30 appearances. Jeff Hoffman, Louis Varland and Tyler Rogers are among those tied for sixth place with 28 appearances.

As the calendar flips to June, all five relievers are on pace to reach 75 games played by the end of the regular season. If that rate holds, the 2026 Blue Jays would become the first team in MLB history with five pitchers recording 75 or more outings.

The volume is historic, but the results — especially for the trio of Varland, Rogers and Fisher — are even more impressive.

Varland, acquired in a deal with the Twins just before last summer’s Trade Deadline, is putting together a sensational first full season in Toronto. The 28-year-old’s minuscule 0.29 ERA ranks first in the Majors among pitchers with at least 20 innings under their belt, and the second-place entry on that list (Rico Garcia, Brayan Bello and Robert Suarez all have a 0.71 ERA) is more than double his mark. Varland also currently leads the club with 1.9 bWAR.

The dependable veteran Rogers has been exactly as advertised since signing a three-year deal during the offseason, posting a 2.36 ERA along with a 100th-percentile ground-ball rate.

And Fisher, the surging 25-year-old who picked up his first big league save on Friday night in Baltimore, is pitching to a 2.48 ERA. Over his past seven innings, he’s allowed just one hit while striking out 10 batters.

All three pitchers currently hold an ERA+ above 175. If the trio’s combination of high usage and high production keeps up, it would join some pretty exclusive company.

Most players with 175+ ERA+ and 75+ games pitched on a team (since 1913, when earned runs became an official statistic):
3, 2011 Braves (Craig Kimbrel, Eric O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters)
3, 2003 Dodgers (Eric Gagne, Guillermo Mota, Paul Quantrill)
2, 2024 Guardians (Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin)
2, 2003 Astros (Octavio Dotel, Billy Wagner)

But is this history the Blue Jays want to be making?

Toronto’s bullpen as a whole is carrying a heavy workload this season. The relief corps has tallied 253 2/3 innings, fourth-most in the Majors, as the rotation has been reeling from a slew of injuries. If the Blue Jays’ starting pitching group was at anything close to full strength, it’s difficult to imagine manager John Schneider would deploy this many arms at this rate. There’s a reason such achievements are a rarity.

For Rogers, the usage is nothing new. Since 2021, he’s averaged 74.8 appearances per season, and he set a new career high with 81 appearances between the Giants and Mets last year. Varland was a starter coming up through the Minors and early in his big league career, so he’s thrown as many as 152 1/3 innings in a season. He also set a postseason record by pitching in 15 playoff games with Toronto last year. But for Fisher, this is relatively uncharted territory. The right-hander is on pace to match his professional career high in appearances (66 between Toronto and Triple-A Buffalo in 2025) by August 23.

There’s also the lefty Fluharty, who has been making a bid to join the dominant trio’s ranks. In the month of May, the 24-year-old posted a 0.82 ERA with 14 strikeouts and two walks. Fluharty is on a full-season pace for 84 appearances, which would be the most by a pitcher since Venters totaled 85 in 2011 (prior to the institution of the three-batter minimum in 2020).

But reinforcements are expected to arrive in June. Shane Bieber, sidelined since March due to elbow inflammation, made his first rehab appearance with Single-A Dunedin on Saturday. Max Scherzer, who impressed in Spring Training before battling forearm tendinitis and ankle inflammation, tossed three scoreless innings for Triple-A Buffalo on Sunday. Relievers Yimi Garcíá (elbow) and Tommy Nance (forearm) should also be set to return in the coming weeks.

Once the supply of pitchers is replenished, it remains to be seen how the Blue Jays’ bullpen usage will stabilize. Their reliever-fueled staff has put up a solid 3.89 ERA, ranking 11th-best in the Majors, but they’ll need those arms to stay fresh for the long haul if they plan to play into October (or even November) once again.

Varland, Rogers and Fisher can’t lead the Blue Jays back to that stage on their own. Though if you look at the trio’s impact thus far — a combined 1.69 ERA in 90 1/3 innings pitched through the team’s first 60 games — it sure seems like they’re trying to do just that.