Blue Jays Starter Continues to Struggle, Leading MLB in Home Runs Allowed

Things are not looking good on the mound.

Apr 18, 2025; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Bowden Francis (44) delivers a pitch against the Seattle Mariners in the second inning at Rogers Centre. | Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

The Toronto Blue Jays are off to a pretty back and forth start to the 2025 season, and one of the biggest reasons for their lost momentum is due to their pitching staff. Despite reshuffling their starters over the course of the past year or so, and potentially looking to continue to do so, they have lost quite a bit of their success there, and are now one of the lower ranked rotations across the MLB.

When it comes to their rankings statistically, the team places No. 23 in ERA (4.23), and are tied for No. 2 in home runs allowed (57). The intriguing part is in most other areas they have found some level of success, posting the fourth most strikeouts, fifth least amount of walks, and are around league average in batting average allowed.

The home run issue is a huge one though, as allowing 57 home runs through 40 games is a truly astounding amount, with only the Baltimore Orioles having allowed more so far (58 through 39 games). This begs the question, why is it happening?

The player with the most home runs allowed not only on the team, but in the MLB, is Bowden Francis, who has had 12 home runs hit off of him in eight starts this season. What has caused this to become a problem for him in 2025, and why has it not been displayed in previous years?

What Changes Have Occurred to Cause Francis to Struggle This Season?

For context, the MLB leader in home runs allowed last season was Kutter Crawford of the Boston Red Sox, giving up 34 of them in a whopping 33 starts. The current pace of Francis is one and a half homers allowed per game, which at that sample size of 33 starts, would mean he is on pace to give up nearly 50 home runs.

The most intriguing part about it all is that Francis has shown promise in previous years, and even this year has 30 strikeouts in 41.2 innings-pitched, so what is the problem?

Most notably, his induced break on pitches has seen a relatively drastic fall off, especially his curveball. While his curve was not particularly great previously, it is now significantly worse. According to Baseball Savant, he is averaging 4.5 inches less of vertical movement than league average, which, despite a positive horizontal movement profile (4.1 inches more than league average), is making this pitch very hittable.

So far this season Francis has thrown 98 curveballs, and on them, batters have a .417 batting average and a 1.000 slugging percentage. Neither of the pitches he has thrown at a higher rate in his repertoire have a worse batting average or slugging percentage, and none of them are even particularly close, with only the sinker being worse on only 11 pitches thrown.

There is a clear issue between the curveball and the split-finger fastball overall, as those two pitches account for a total negative nine run value, with his other three pitches combined only accounting for negative two on a larger sample size.

Keeping an eye on his curveball utilization in the coming weeks will be something to consider, as the team may look to cut down on it and focus on throwing the pitches that have been effective for him this season.