Alford answers call for backup
Outfielder’s hard work with Bisons pays off; Jays hand game to Rays Outfield Anthony Alford’s first stint with the Jays ended early because of injury.
Anthony Alford’s time in the major leagues, following his debut last May, lasted all of five days.
The 23-year-old outfielder — the Blue Jays’ No. 3 prospect, according to MLBPipeline.com — was called up from the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and soon after broke a bone in his left wrist during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers, the same contest in which he recorded his first bigleague hit.
He returned to the field seven weeks later, but didn’t find his way back to The Show for the rest of the season.
In an interview this past week in Buffalo with the Triple-A Bisons, he recalled how one day he was living the dream and the next day having surgery.
“It was kind of like an emotional roller-coaster, I guess you could say,” Alford said.
He fought hard for a shot as a September call-up, but fell short and said he used that disappointment as fuel for the offseason. He played in the Mexican Pacific League from early November until Christmas Eve, working on several parts of his game but one in particular: hitting off-speed pitches.
On Saturday, it paid off in a call-up to join the Blue Jays for the second game of their series against the Rays in Tampa — a 5-3 loss in the end. Alford didn’t get into the game, but the Jays are thin in the outfield with left fielder Curtis Granderson dayto-day, nursing a groin injury. Reliever Jake Petricka was optioned to Buffalo to make room.
Jays starter Aaron Sanchez turned in his shortest outing of the season in Tampa, giving up four runs on five hits over 32⁄ shaky innings. Walks were the big problem — three in the first inning alone, with Tampa’s Wilson Ramos scoring the game’s opening run on one of two fielding errors by second baseman Lourdes Gurriel Jr. The Rays’ doubled their lead with an RBI single from Ramos in the third frame before Sanchez gave up a pair of runs in the fourth, one of those unearned on the second Gurriel miscue.
Gurriel helped made amends at the plate with a solo homer in the eighth inning, the rookie’s second of the year. Teammate Teoscar Hernandez hit his fifth long ball of the year in the fourth. Aledmys Diaz chipped in with a double and a single, and scored on an RBI single by Hernandez in the seventh. Manager John Gibbons was ejected for the second time on the Jays’ eight-game road trip, which ends Sunday. It was his 46th career ejection, after giving home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor an earful, apparently about the strike zone, in the eighth inning.
Alford, meanwhile, waits for his name to be called by Gibbons. In the days before the move, he expressed confidence that he’d get the chance soon. Touted by the Blue Jays coaching staff for his improved baseball instincts over the course of spring training, Alford — a for- mer college football player — admitted he was young and raw when he first arrived at spring training in 2015. Without much pro experience, he said, it felt like coming out of high school.
He said all he needed was a little time.
“I knew I was going to figure it out,” he said. “I ain’t saying that I have baseball figured out, but I just knew that I was going to get better with time and with the reps.”