Happ ‘ahead of the curve’ with his high heat
Blue Jays starter earns plaudits from fellow AL all-stars, writes Rob Longley.
If J.A. Happ was nervous about his first trip to the MLB all-star game, Justin Verlander and some of his World Series-champion Houston Astros teammates eased some of that on Tuesday.
A handful of Astros were chatting with the Blue Jays starter and applauded him for being a trendsetter in the game. Specifically, Verlander and company were impressed with Happ’s mastery of the high fastball, a growing trend in the game today.
“They were like, ‘You were ahead of the curve with the fastball in the top-of-the-zone stuff,’” Happ said. “I wish that was something that I maybe would have recognized earlier in my career that it was a strength of mine.”
Before Tuesday’s game, Happ wasn’t given any indication of whether he’d get the call from AL manager A.J. Hinch. Meanwhile, Happ had to weather another day of trade speculation with reporters from Chicago and New York particularly interested in his desires.
It gets tiring at times listening to the inevitable questions directed at commissioner Rob Manfred regarding potential MLB expansion. But there was certainly reason to take notice Tuesday when Manfred said eight four-team divisions would allow baseball “to do more things with the schedule” Manfred specifically mentioned the opportunity of expansion to Canada, later mentioning Montreal and “maybe someplace else,” on the Dan Patrick Show. Emphasizing stadium issues in Tampa and Oakland need to be addressed first, Manfred said adding teams is in the plans, too. “Once those (stadium) issues are resolved, I would love to get to 32 teams,” he said.