TORONTO -- The Blue Jays’ bullpen needs a vacation. In the meantime, some reinforcements will have to do.
The Blue Jays picked up veteran reliever Paul Sewald off waivers from the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, and the 36-year-old is expected to be activated by Friday’s series opener against the Yankees at Rogers Centre.
Sewald had 24 saves for the D-backs this season, but he’s run into serious home run troubles with a 6.23 ERA and was recently designated for assignment. The Blue Jays know Sewald well from his time pitching at the back end of the Mariners’ bullpen from 2021-23, and he’s racked up 110 career saves over 10 big league seasons.
In Toronto, Sewald won’t be asked to pitch high-leverage innings, at least not right away. This could be part of the solution if the Blue Jays are going to get a few good weeks out of Sewald.
“When you’re closing, you’re kind of just pitching against whoever,” John Schneider said. “I think we can probably find some better spots for him. There’s some weirdness to a lot of relievers [in performance]. We talked about it with [Jeff] Hoffman the whole time he was here this year. When a guy has pitched the late innings, you feel good about that. It’s just been a weird year for [Sewald] keeping the ball in the park, so we’re going to try to tighten up some matchups for him.”
The late innings are just fine with Louis Varland, Tyler Rogers and Braydon Fisher, but that trio has been ridden hard in 2026. Mason Fluharty entered Wednesday leading the Majors with 62 appearances, too, so this group is gassed. That’s finally started showing up in games recently, with the Blue Jays forced to go to unlikely options in the late innings while Varland and Rogers needed some days off.
There’s no time to catch your breath, though. The Blue Jays have just 41 games remaining. Schneider isn’t going to roll out Varland five games in a row, but beyond that? All bets are off.
“Sustainable is out the window,” Schneider said Tuesday. “It’s about what we have to do tonight. If this was April, it would be a different story when guys were on pace for a historic amount of appearances out of the bullpen. Right now, sustain it for tomorrow night. After tomorrow, sustain it for the next night. It’s a full send right now.”
Along with Sewald, the Blue Jays can continue to cycle some relievers through to keep fresh, multi-inning options at the ready. Currently, that’s Simeon Woods Richardson, who will also be a candidate to fill in the rotation spot vacated by Jameson Taillon after he hit the 15-day IL with right forearm tendinitis. CJ Van Eyk, Chad Dallas and Lazaro Estrada are also options down the stretch.