Max Scherzer sends Jeff Hoffman a blunt message after terrible collapse

Scherzer did not dress it up. He said Hoffman is “going through it,” added that he has lived through that kind of stretch himself, and made clear the clubhouse is still behind Toronto's closer.

“We all believe in him. We all love him. We all believe he's going to figure it out and get big outs for us. That's never going to change.”

That lands because Hoffman's recent line has been rough. He owns a 7.71 ERA with 2 saves, and the bad moments have started to stack up enough that every ninth inning feels a little louder.

The latest one hit hard Saturday in Arizona. Hoffman gave up 4 earned runs in 1.0 inning, and that outing pushed Toronto to 7-13 on the season.

This did not start in Phoenix, either. On April 14 in Milwaukee, Hoffman walked 3 batters in 0.2 innings and blew another save before the Blue Jays rescued the game later.

That is why Scherzer's words matter. He is not some fringe voice in the room. He is a future Hall of Famer Toronto signed to stabilize a staff that has already been under strain, and his support gives Hoffman something more than a manager's stock vote of confidence.

The numbers make Hoffman's slump look messy, but they also show why the Blue Jays are not ready to bail on him. Statcast still puts his 2026 xERA at 2.35, with a 43.9% strikeout rate and a 44.0% whiff rate.

That is the strange part of Hoffman's April. Sportsnet called it a weird start because the swing-and-miss stuff is still there even while the runs keep showing up.

So Scherzer's quote was not empty teammate talk. It was a veteran pitcher looking at the shape of the outings, not just the box score, and telling everyone not to lose the plot. That is an inference based on Scherzer's comment and Hoffman's underlying metrics.

Toronto still needs Hoffman to get the late outs. This bullpen has enough moving parts already, and the club is not built to keep surviving ninth-inning leaks while chasing ground in the AL East.

That is why Scherzer stepped in. Jeff Hoffman is going through it, just like Scherzer said, but inside the Blue Jays clubhouse the belief has not changed yet, and that may matter almost as much as the next save chance.