If you want a mellow, stress-free life, don’t become a Major League Baseball closer. Take up a more tranquil career, like maybe air traffic controller.

It’s living on the edge, that high-leverage ninth inning, protecting a slim lead or dowsing a rally. Botching it stands out in, well, three-dimension relief. Then you’ll hear the howls of displeasure.

Jeff Hoffman has absorbed that cacophony. He may have had the fourth-best save total (33) in baseball this season but that’s not necessarily the stat that has come to define the right-hander in his first year with the Blue Jays . Instead, as the regular season progressed, he induced swelling anxiety.

Rough rides for the amiable 32-year-old.

“The way I see it is I would rather it be that way than to play for a fan base that doesn’t care

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