TORONTO – The Yankees’ bullpen, a significant strength the first two months of the season, has had a handful of attention-getting meltdowns in recent weeks as the club has struggled to win games.

The latest came in Tuesday’s 12-5 loss to the Blue Jays when Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Weaver and Geoff Hartlieb, who was called up that day, combined to allow eight runs (seven earned).

In Monday’s come-from-ahead 5-4 loss, it was Leiter, along with Jonathan Loaisiga, tag-teaming to allow Toronto to score four runs in the bottom of the sixth (Leiter was charged with all four runs).

The unit, which took a significant hit on Monday with the news strikeout artist Fernando Cruz would be lost for, in manager Aaron Boone’s words, “some time” after suffering a high-grade left oblique strain on Sunday, had a 10.13 ERA over its previous four games entering Wednesday.

“Obviously, a tough stretch here,” Boone said of the unit after Tuesday’s loss.

It is among the worst secrets in the sport that the Yankees have prioritized getting bullpen help before the July 31 trade deadline, though, in truth, internally discussions for that need began even before Cruz went down.

“We need that back-end power guy,” one club insider said three weeks ago, when the bullpen was performing relatively well.

The unit collectively, of course, has not been performing well of late, entering Wednesday night’s game with a 3.77 ERA, ranking it 16th in the big leagues.

“Some of those guys have been leaned on heavily,” Boone said late Tuesday night. “It’s on me. I gotta do a better job of getting those guys in positions where they can be successful and making the right decisions for them to make sure they’re in the best spot possible. But, obviously, it’s been a little bit of a tough stretch for us.”

Though Weaver allowed a grand slam to George Springer in Tuesday’s loss, the righthander has overall thrown the ball well since returning from the IL and the group’s unit hasn’t been in the back end. Devin Williams, who lost the closer’s job to Weaver in late April before getting it back when the latter went to the IL with a hamstring strain, has a 2.42 ERA and is 7-for-7 in save chances in 24 games since April 28 (he’s 11-for-12 in save chances overall).

No, the issues have been with the pitchers preceding Weaver and Williams, Leiter and lefthander Tim Hill primarily. Though before Wednesday’s game, Boone didn’t delve too deeply into what he meant by “it’s on me,” it is not too difficult to diagnose as it all but certainly relates to usage.

Leiter and Hill, the team’s lone lefthander, lead the club in appearances with 39 and seemingly are up warming every night.

“Leiter really looks gassed to me,” said one National League scout who saw the Yankees last month.

Leiter, who has a 4.68 ERA, has allowed runs in each of his last three outings while the side-armer Hill, still with good numbers overall (a 2.45 ERA), isn’t fooling hitters to the degree he was the first two months of the season. In short, Boone’s circle of trust with his relief corps is at a season-low.

The Yankees tweaked the unit Wednesday afternoon, designating Hartlieb, who allowed three runs in an inning Tuesday, for assignment and recalling righthander Clayton Beeter, converted from a starter to reliever in the spring, from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Beeter, though the product of some organizational hype since the Yankees acquired him from the Dodgers in exchange for Joey Gallo in 2022, is not expected by anyone to be the kind of bullpen difference-maker the team will be searching for before the trade deadline.

The problem, as one rival AL talent evaluator said on Wednesday, is the competition for that kind of reliever.

“Everyone is looking for that big bullpen arm,” the evaluator said.

And, even if the Yankees are successful in making that kind of deal, those kind of trades typically don’t happen until just before the deadline. Meaning, nearly a month to go in which they’ll have to make do with what they have.

“It hasn’t necessarily been ideal the whole way and obviously we’ve had a little bit of attrition lately,” Boone said. “But the bottom line is we still have really capable people of doing their job at a high level and that’s our expectation moving forward, and we’ve got to continue to find ways to get guys in the best position to be successful.”