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Toronto Blue Jays: Assessing the team’s current pitching situation

By David Morassutti

Sean Reid-Foley #54 of the Toronto Blue Jays is pulled from the game by Manager Charlie Montoyo in the fourth inning during a MLB game against the Texas Rangers at Rogers Centre on August 14, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
Sean Reid-Foley #54 of the Toronto Blue Jays is pulled from the game by Manager Charlie Montoyo in the fourth inning during a MLB game against the Texas Rangers at Rogers Centre on August 14, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Blue Jays
Sean Reid-Foley #54 of the Toronto Blue Jays pitches in the first inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on August 18, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /

Sean Reid-Foley

Once a highly-touted prospect, Reid-Foley has struggled to establish himself in the rotation. Through 13 starts over the past two seasons, he has only pitched five innings or more seven times which is to be expected for someone who has been slowly working their way to the majors.

Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet wrote recently that a big issue with Reid-Foley is that he isn’t able to generate swing and misses and keeping his velocity consistent inning-by-inning.

Earlier in his career, the 23-year-old was struggling to command his pitches allowing 5.7 BB9 and unfortunately, that hasn’t improved this season and his SO0 has gone from 11.3 in 2018 to 7.8 in 2019.

What has gotten better is that Reid-Foley has limited the number of home runs given up and his ERA has gone from 5.13 in 2018 to 3.00 in 2019. While that might seem like progress, if a pitcher isn’t able to pitch into at least the sixth or seventh inning on a consistent basis and isn’t able to remain consistent with his pitches, that doesn’t mean as much.

There has been some debate as to whether Reid-Foley’s future should be in the bullpen and at this point that shouldn’t be considered since the team has the opportunity to see how he handles the workload of being a starter. However, if he isn’t able to show any progress then it would be hard to see him sticking in the rotation.

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