DREAM SCENARIO FOR FORMER JAY
Pearce back at first base and chasing a World Series ring, writes Rob Longley.
In the moment, anyway, the surprise moment in which Steve Pearce found out he was going to be a member of the Boston Red Sox, it was a sobering bit of news he didn’t really want to hear.
Seriously.
It was on the night of June 28 when Blue Jays manager Ross Atkins tracked down Pearce by phone at a Toronto hotel where he was participating in then teammate Josh Donaldson’s annual charity bowling event. On a rare off-night, likely blowing off some steam, the trade came as a shock to Pearce. “We were having so much fun and I got the news and it was like, crap, I’m having fun with all my guys,” Pearce said in an interview. “I was like ‘Guys, I gotta go. I just got traded.’ At the time it was like ‘oh no’ and ‘I’m going to a competitor,’ but it was the best move for my career.”
It has been that by a substantial margin. Beyond the obvious of being three wins away from a World Series win prior to Wednesday’s Game 2 of the bestof-seven series versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pearce has to pinch himself almost daily when he pulls on his Red Sox jersey. He’s had the opportunity to play an important role for the American League champions, starting more often than not at first base.
He’s also contributing heavily at the plate for a team that is borderline dominant.
It has been a significant upward career move for the 12-year major-league veteran. “First base is my primary position, the one I always came up playing,” Pearce said of the assignment he rarely got to see with the Blue Jays. “I’m way more comfortable at first base than I am in the outfield. I feel like I can be more comfortable and play my game.”
When Pearce signed a two-year deal with the Jays in December 2016, the intention was for him to see significant time at first in a platoon situation. But when the season began, he was recovering from arm surgery and another teammate was about to make the bag at first his own.
By the time the Lakeland, Fla. native was healthy enough, Justin Smoak was well into the tear that would eventually send him to the 2017 all-star game and he became an everyday player at the corner spot.
“It was part of the game, that’s been part of my career, anyway,” Pearce said of the way things worked out during his first season with the Jays. “I always seem to find myself behind somebody that’s proven better or having a breakout year. I love Smoak and it was awesome to watch what he was doing and the player that he has become.
“But what stank last year is I was going to play first base and split with him, but I had my arm surgery and I had to go to the outfield. That was very tough to say: Now I have to go out and throw the baseball as hard as I can instead of playing first base where I was comfortable.” Pearce’s fortune in Boston has been the opposite of what it was in Toronto. Brought in essentially as depth to face left-handers, he started out hitting hot and never cooled down. Less than 24 hours after the call in Toronto, Pearce was hitting cleanup and the first pitch he saw with the Red Sox he crushed into the leftfield
I always seem to find myself behind somebody that’s proven better or having a breakout year.
corner at Fenway Park. Since then he has hit for power against both lefties and righties and has become a go-to guy for first-year manager Alex Cora. “We put the ball in play and we get our hits against lefties, but we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark,” Cora said. “But as soon as Pearcey got here, we started doing that and hitting for extrabase hits against lefties, and he’s been great.”
Relaxed and thriving off the environment with the Red Sox, Pearce is an important piece in the World Series against the Dodgers, who are starting lefthanders in three of the first four games.
“I’m very fortunate that I am here,” said Pearce, who started at first for the first two games of the World Series. “When we weren’t winning that much in Toronto, we had a talented team, but it was just injuries that crushed us. “For me to come over here after the trade and to be accepted the way I was and to contribute the way I’ve been able to … it’s just a great situation for me.”