Should the Blue Jays be concerned about Bowden Francis?

The most concerning thing about the recent slump is the amount of hard contact the Florida native has allowed. He’s allowed nine home runs (including a career-high five against the Red Sox on April 29th) and 21 earned runs, with many of his pitches in the middle of the strike zone. As mentioned earlier, Francis relies on hitting his spots rather than the velocity of his pitches, and most of the damage he’s surrendered has been on mistakes. He currently leads all MLB pitchers through the season with 14 homers allowed. 

A look at the advanced numbers continues to paint an unsettling picture. Francis has allowed an opponent’s batting average of .286 (up from .229 for his career) while his opponents’ OPS (.893) is over 200 points higher than his career number (.683). He’s allowed 14 homers, with seven percent of his pitches leaving the yard (up from his career mark of 4.8%, and more than double the MLB average of 3%). His strikeout percentage is down (from 22.5 in 2024 to 17.9 in 2025), and his hard-hit rate is up significantly (from 41.1% for his career to 51.1% this year).

The stats on Baseball Savant are even bleaker, as Francis is in the bottom six percent in expected batting average, or XBA (.306), XSLG (.540), and expected ERA, or XERA (6.05), which suggests that his traditional numbers could be even more ghastly. His page is filled with a ton of blue. 

The one bright spot for Francis during this rough patch was his May 10 start against the Seattle Mariners when the right-hander pitched into the seventh inning while allowing three earned runs and just one home run. Studying what worked in that start and avoiding the pitfalls of the other recent games will be paramount for Francis, who will be asked to figure things out on the fly as the staff, already without Max Scherzer for an extended period, is high on experience but woefully short on depth.