Lights-out closer Jordan Romano is delivering exactly what the Jays had envisioned — before the curveballs

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This article was published 12/04/2022 (1303 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK—The Blue Jays owe a thank-you card to the Texas Rangers, because if it wasn’t for an assist from one of their former rivals the back end of the bullpen wouldn’t have become the stabilizing force it is today.

Three years ago, the Jays left Jordan Romano unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. He was picked up by the Rangers and came very close to making their team out of spring training. If he did, the hometown kid never would have donned the blue and white, and it’s possible the Jays would still be searching for a solution to their ninth-inning woes.

At the time, leaving Romano exposed appeared to be an oversight by the front office. The Jays, who were shut out 4-0 by the New York Yankees on Tuesday night, gambled that another team wouldn’t take a chance on the righty from Markham, then 26 years old. The Rangers did, but they didn’t stick it out for long enough. And when Romano just missed an opportunity to make the team out of camp, the rules of the draft dictated he had to be offered back to the Jays.

That turned out to be a fortunate break for the Jays because for the last two-plus years Romano has been everything they could have hoped for in late-game situations. That point was driven home even more on Monday night at Yankee Stadium, when Romano became the Jays record holder for the longest consecutive saves streak with 26.

“I think everything happens for a reason, you know what I mean?” said Romano, who surpassed Tom Henke’s mark of 25. “I don’t really look back and think, ‘Oh, I should have done this or this could have happened.’ It happened and I’m here now.

“But not long after I came back, it just felt right: making my debut with this team, the team that knows me and the one my family grew up watching, cheering for.”

Romano wasn’t even born when Henke and Duane Ward formed a lethal duo late in games for the Jays en route to a World Series title in 1992. But as someone who grew up in the area during the late 1990s and 2000s, he’d at least heard the stories and watched the videos.

One year prior to that World Series run, Henke set the Jays saves record while posting a 2.32 ERA across 49 appearances. Relievers Casey Janssen and Roberto Osuna came close to matching that number, but it held up for more than three decades until Romano came along to set one of his own.

The streak began on May 11, 2021, when Romano closed out a 5-3 victory over Atlanta with a scoreless ninth. Since then, he has been almost flawless with two earned runs over 26 2/3 innings, which equates to a 0.68 ERA. He’s allowed 0.67 walks/hits per inning pitched while holding opponents to a .143 batting average. Over that same span, he has walked just four while striking out 33.

“He has been huge. I don’t take that for granted,” Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said. “He deserves so much credit because of where he’s doing it. He has a record like that in a division where four teams won 90 games or more — that’s where he did it.”

This is the role the Jays always envisioned for Romano.

He was a closer during his final year at Oral Roberts University, and while the Jays moved him into a starter’s role shortly after the draft they simply did so because that’s usually how all the top pitching prospects are developed. At some point he was going to transition to the ’pen, and it finally happened shortly upon his return to the Jays in 2019.

As a starter, Romano said his fastball only hit around 91 m.p.h. and he had to conserve energy to pace himself throughout each outing. Once his role changed, Romano was free of those concerns and could let it fly. Soon after, that 91-m.p.h. heater became a 97- to 98-m.p.h. weapon.

The transition worked out well for both parties. Most pitchers envision themselves as starters on their way to the top, but Romano fell in love with his high-leverage role in university and it was something he was more than willing to get back to after struggling in the rotation as a minor leaguer.

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“When I came off Tommy John (elbow surgery, done in 2015) they said I was throwing really well and wanted to try me out as a starter,” Romano said. “I didn’t mind it. I wanted to make it as a starter as well, but deep down … (John) Schneider was my manager for a while and I kept telling him, ‘Schneids move me to the ’pen.’ And he was like, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it.’ But I finally moved there, and that’s where I wanted to be for a couple years. I like it better there.”

The bullpen’s struggles during the first half of last season played a big role in the Jays falling one win shy of forcing a play-in game at the end of the year. The thing is, without Romano they likely never even would have had a shot during that final week.

When Tyler Chatwood and Rafael Dolis were blowing games on a regular basis, Romano still managed to get the job done. And now that he’s surrounded by a seemingly competent group, it’s possible he’ll become the leader of a group of pitchers who end up becoming a strength for a team with ambitions of a World Series title.

None of this would have been possible if the Rangers hadn’t helped the Jays undo one of their previous mistakes. Back-to-back losses to the Jays in the AL Division Series in 2015 and 2016, followed a few years later by the return of Romano. The Rangers are the gift that keeps on giving to those in the north.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca